Visualizing the melting of the charge density wave in UTe2 by generation of pairs of topological defects with opposite winding

Published

June 15, 2023

Author(s)

Anuva Aishwarya, Julian May-Mann, Avior Almoalem, Sheng Ran, Shanta Saha, Johnpierre Paglione, Nicholas Butch, Eduardo Fradkin, Vidya Madhavan

Abstract

Topological defects are singularities in an ordered phase that can have a profound effect on phase transitions and serve as a window into the order parameter. In this work we use scanning tunneling microscopy to visualize the role of topological defects in the novel magnetic field induced disappearance of an intertwined charge density wave (CDW) in the heavy fermion superconductor, UTe2. By simultaneously imaging the amplitude and phase of the CDW order, we reveal pairs of topological defects with positive and negative phase winding. The pairs are directly correlated with a zero CDW amplitude and increase in number with increasing magnetic field. These observations can be captured by a Ginzburg Landau model of a uniform superconductor coexisting with a pair density wave. A magnetic field generates vortices of the superconducting and pair density wave order which can create topological defects in the CDW and induce the experimentally observed melting of the CDW at the upper critical field. Our work reveals the important role of magnetic field generated topological defects in the melting the CDW order parameter in UTe2 and provides support for the existence of a parent pair density wave order on the surface of UTe2.

Citation

arxiv

Volume

na

Issue

na

Pub Weblink

https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.09423

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Keywords

charge density wave, topology, scanning tunneling spectroscopy

Citation

Aishwarya, A. , May-Mann, J. , Almoalem, A. , Ran, S. , Saha, S. , Paglione, J. , Butch, N. , Fradkin, E. and Madhavan, V. (2023), Visualizing the melting of the charge density wave in UTe2 by generation of pairs of topological defects with opposite winding, arxiv, [online], https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2306.09423, https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.09423 (Accessed May 2, 2024)