Absence of a Bulk Thermodynamic Phase Transition to a Density Wave Phase in UTe2

Abstract

Competing and intertwined orders are ubiquitous in strongly correlated electron systems, such as the charge, spin, and superconducting orders in the high-Tc cuprates. Recent scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) measurements provide evidence for a charge density wave (CDW) that coexists with superconductivity in the heavy Fermion metal UTe2. This CDW persists up to at least 7.5 K and, as a CDW breaks the translational symmetry of the lattice, its disappearance is necessarily accompanied by thermodynamic phase transition. Here, we report high-precision thermodynamic measurements of the elastic moduli of UTe2. We observe no signature of a phase transition in the elastic moduli down to a level of 1 part in 10^7, strongly implying the absence of bulk CDW order in UTe2. We suggest that the CDW and associated pair density wave (PDW) observed by STM may be confined to the surface of UTe2.

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Incommensurate antiferromagnetism in UTe2 under pressure
• Absence of a bulk charge density wave signature in x-ray measurements of UTe${}_2$
• Evidence for reduced periodic lattice distortion within the Sb-terminated surface layer of the kagome metal CsV${}_3$Sb${}_5$
• Quasiparticle interference and spectral function of the UTe${}_2$ superconductive surface band
• Magnetic excitations and absence of charge order in the van der Waals ferromagnet Fe${}_{4.75}$GeTe${}_2$
• Visualizing the Odd-parity Superconducting Order Parameter and its Quasiparticle Surface Band in UTe2
• Evidence of intertwined pair density and charge density wave orders in UTe2