Correlation Induced Magnetic Topological Phases in Mixed-Valence Compound SmB6

Abstract

SmB6 is a mixed-valence compound with flat f-electron bands that have a propensity to magnetism. Here, using a realistic Gamma8 quartet model, we investigate the dynamical spin susceptibility and describe the in-gap collective mode observed in neutron scattering experiments. We show that as the Sm valence increases with pressure, the magnetic correlations enhance and SmB6 undergoes a first-order phase transition into a metallic antiferromagnetic state, whose symmetry depends on the model parameters. The magnetic orderings give rise to distinct band topologies: while the A-type order leads to an overlap between valence and conduction bands in the form of Dirac nodal lines, the G-type order has a negative indirect gap with weak Z2 indices. We also consider the spin polarized phase under a strong magnetic field, and find that it exhibits Weyl points as well as nodal lines close to the Fermi level. The magnetic phases show markedly different surface states and tunable bulk transport properties, with important implications for experiments. Our theory predicts that a magnetic order can be stabilized also by lifting the Gamma8 cubic symmetry, thus explaining the surface magnetism reported in SmB6.

published version, Supplementary Material included

References in corpus (7)

• Photovoltaic Hall effect in graphene
• Antiferromagnetic topological insulators
• Correlated Topological Insulators with Mixed Valence
• Interaction Driven Subgap Spin Exciton in the Kondo Insulator SmB6
• Excitons in topological Kondo insulators - theory of thermodynamic and transport anomalies in SmB${}_6$
• Scanning tunneling spectroscopy and surface quasiparticle interference in models for the strongly correlated topological insulators SmB6 and PuB6
• Spin-selective tunneling from nanowires of the candidate topological Kondo insulator SmB6

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Topology of SmB6 revisited by means of topological quantum chemistry