English

Type II $t-J$ model in superconducting nickelate Nd$_{1-x}$Sr$_x$NiO$_2$

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2020-05-06 v2

Abstract

The recent observation of superconductivity at relatively high temperatures in hole doped NdNiO2_2 has generated considerable interest, particularly due to its similarity with the infinite layer cuprates. Building on the observation that the Ni2+^{2+} ions resulting from hole doping are commonly found in the spin-triplet state, we introduce and study a variant of the tJt-J model in which the holes carry S=1. We name this new model the Type II tJt-J model. We find two distinct mechanisms for dd wave superconductivity. In both scenarios the pairing is driven by the spin coupling JJ. However, coherence is gained in distinct ways in these two scenarios. In the first case, the spin-one holes condense leading to a dd wave superconductor along with spin-symmetry breaking. Different orders including spin-nematic orders are possible. This scenario is captured by a spin one slave boson theory. In the second scenario, a coherent and symmetric dd wave superconductor is achieved from "Kondo resonance": spin one holes contribute two electrons to form large Fermi surface together with the spin 1/2 singly occupied sites. The large Fermi surface then undergoes dd wave pairing because of spin coupling JJ, similar to heavy fermion superconductor. We propose a three-fermion parton theory to treat these two different scenarios in one unified framework and calculate its doping phase diagram within a self consistent mean field approximation. Our study shows that a combination of "cuprate physics" and "heavy fermion physics" may emerge in the type II tJt-J model.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1909.12865,
  title  = {Type II $t-J$ model in superconducting nickelate Nd$_{1-x}$Sr$_x$NiO$_2$},
  author = {Ya-Hui Zhang and Ashvin Vishwanath},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1909.12865},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

5+9 pages, 3 figures; 2nd version: changed the title and added references