Emergent superconductivity upon disordering a topological insulator
Abstract
We study the emergence of superconductivity in a quantum spin Hall insulator and identify a disorder-driven enhancement of pairing arising from quantum geometry. Using sign-problem-free quantum Monte Carlo simulations of the attractive Bernevig-Hughes-Zhang (BHZ) Hubbard model, we obtain a quantum phase transition as a function of interaction strength for different impurity densities. In the clean limit, the system develops bulk superconductivity for Hubbard interaction above a finite critical strength. Interestingly, strong impurities significantly reduce such required for the onset of superconductivity. Our calculations indicate that Cooper pairing first nucleates in subgap ring states surrounding the impurities and then evolves into a globally coherent superconducting phase. Our results demonstrate that impurity-generated bound states can promote superconductivity in systems with strong quantum geometry. This mechanism is expected to be relevant in nearly flat-band systems like moir\'e materials where quantum geometry plays a dominant role.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2607.07163,
title = {Emergent superconductivity upon disordering a topological insulator},
author = {Carlos Eduardo S. P. Corsino and Hermann Freire and Anurag Banerjee},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.07163},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
9 pages 8 Figures