English

Supercritical fluid of quantum electrons in three-dimensional superconducting fullerides

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2026-07-06 v1

Abstract

The supercritical fluid (SCF) of quantum electrons at the Mott metal-insulator transition without symmetry breaking is one of the most elusive phenomena in strongly correlated electron physics. Prior studies of Cr-doped V2O3 and organic Mott systems reported discrepant critical exponents. A key limitation is that the scaling analysis relies on a single experimental observable, leaving the roles of phase coexistence, inhomogeneity, and percolation unaddressed. Here we report the first experimental identification of a thermodynamically equilibrated SCF phase and its associated Mott endpoint in the three-dimensional superconducting fullerides CsxRb3-xC60, using two independent probes of electrical conductivity and magnetic susceptibility, which reveal two distinct metal-insulator transition lines converging at a single Mott endpoint. A hypothesis-free two-particle analysis of magnetic susceptibilities yields a metal-insulator coexisting SCF by exhibiting the maximum two-phase mixing entropy, in agreement with a picture of a thermodynamically equilibrated Widom line. Simultaneously, conductivity scaling yields a critical exponent in the regime of quantum critical predictions. Our new dual-probe approach provides a unified microscopic picture of the Mott SCF with a characteristic length scale below current diffraction resolution, in addition to a new interpretation on the origin of superconducting Tc-dome.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.04693,
  title  = {Supercritical fluid of quantum electrons in three-dimensional superconducting fullerides},
  author = {Xinying Li and Yuki Matsuda and Chongli Yang and Huaxue Zhou and Takuma Ogasawara and Qin Wang and Liguo Zhang and Hidekazu Shimotani and Hailiang Xia and Khuong K. Huynh and Panagiotis Kotetes and Satoshi Heguri and Katsumi Tanigaki},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.04693},
  year   = {2026}
}