Volume 107, Issues 21 - 24 June 2023 | | Advertisement Physical Review B achieves a 3.7 Journal Impact Factor Score | According to the 2022 Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics, 2022), Physical Review B (PRB) achieved a 3.7 Journal Impact Factor Score. | | | | | | Not an APS member? Join today to start connecting with a community of more than 50,000 physicists. | | | | Randall D. Kamien, Jessica Thomas, Stephen E. Nagler, Anthony M. Begley, and Sarma Kancharla Phys. Rev. B 107, 210001 (2023) – Published 21 June 2023 | | | Editors' Suggestion Florian Knoop, Matthias Scheffler, and Christian Carbogno Phys. Rev. B 107, 224304 (2023) – Published 7 June 2023  | Ab initio Green-Kubo simulations provide an accurate description of lattice thermal conductivities from first principles. This approach reliably describes the full range from harmonic to strongly anharmonic materials. The latter are not handled well by often employed, perturbed phonon models. Using challenging benchmark materials as examples, this paper discusses various physical and computational strategies that speed up the calculations. These advancements pave the way for efficiently exploring materials space in the search for thermal insulators, as demonstrated in the accompanying PRL (DOI: https://info.aps.org/e/640833/10-1103-PhysRevLett-130-236301/2pvh57/969215019?h=Qfqhc7UpqOh-ZgVsveMIdMCOcVaFtAMsP51ohHZt_uc). | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Donghwan Kim and Bertrand I. Halperin Phys. Rev. B 107, 224311 (2023) – Published 26 June 2023  | In 1957, Rashba and Davidov published an article on optical absorption in a molecular crystal, considering the interaction of the created exciton with phonons. The problem reduces to calculating the spectral density for the exciton. Here, the authors describe several approximations designed to obtain the behavior of the low-energy tail of the spectral density, where conventional perturbation methods do not work. The analysis includes both the thermal population and quantum motion of the phonons, and an application is made to a one-dimensional continuum model with acoustic phonons. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Sanjay Moudgalya and Olexei I. Motrunich Phys. Rev. B 107, 224312 (2023) – Published 27 June 2023  | Utilizing the understanding of symmetries in the framework of commutant algebras, the authors introduce here general methods to numerically construct symmetry operators and quantum number sectors. One method uses simultaneous block diagonalization of two generic Hamiltonians to construct symmetry sectors, while another method uses the fact that symmetries in the commutant framework are frustration-free ground states of local superoperators, which leads to efficient algorithms. These methods are applied to conventional on-site symmetries, as well as unconventional symmetries such as Hilbert space fragmentation and quantum many-body scars. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Franziska Grußler, Mamoun Hemmida, Sebastian Bachus, Yurii Skourski, Hans-Albrecht Krug von Nidda, Philipp Gegenwart, and Alexander A. Tsirlin Phys. Rev. B 107, 224416 (2023) – Published 15 June 2023  | Spin-liquid materials can be tailored by chemical substitutions. Here, the authors use thermodynamic measurements and electron spin resonance to show that replacing Na by K in triangular magnets of the AYbO2 family weakens the magnetic couplings and renders the Yb3+ ion more isotropic. They map out the temperature-field phase diagram and demonstrate that the field-induced plateau phase corresponds to 1/2 of the saturated magnetization. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion C. B. Larsen, D. G. Mazzone, N. Gauthier, H. D. Rosales, F. A. Gómez Albarracín, J. Lass, X. Boraley, S. L. Bud'ko, P. C. Canfield, and O. Zaharko Phys. Rev. B 107, 224419 (2023) – Published 20 June 2023  | Magnetic order and excitations of the distorted kagome intermetallic magnet TmAgGe are explored using a variety of methods, including single-crystal neutron diffraction, inelastic neutron scattering, Monte Carlo simulations, and the random phase approximation. The magnetic properties are governed by strong, local single-ion anisotropy and geometrically frustrated magnetic exchanges. The authors establish multi-k structures at several different magnetic field configurations and model effective exchange parameters using field-dependencies of the magnetic neutron diffraction reflections and the weakly dispersive crystal electric field mode. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Tessa Cookmeyer and Joel E. Moore Phys. Rev. B 107, 224428 (2023) – Published 27 June 2023  | The Kitaev model is a unique exactly solvable two-dimensional quantum spin system that exhibits a spin-liquid ground state. Here, the authors rigorously rederive and extend a Majorana mean-field theory approach that reproduces, but applies beyond, the exact results. The authors use this approach to predict inelastic neutron scattering (INS) results on realistic Hamiltonians of hypothetical Kitaev spin-liquid materials. Not limited to just the Kitaev model, this approach can extend the applicability of mean-field theory in analyzing dynamics for any system without a large coordination number. | | | | | | Randall D. Kamien, Jessica Thomas, Stephen E. Nagler, Anthony M. Begley, and Sarma Kancharla Phys. Rev. B 107, 230001 (2023) – Published 21 June 2023 | | | Editors' Suggestion Carolyn Zhang Phys. Rev. B 107, 235104 (2023) – Published 1 June 2023  | Broad classes of symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases can be prepared from a product state by locality preserving unitary operators that respect the symmetry as a whole, but cannot be written as symmetric finite depth quantum circuits. This work provides a framework for obtaining explicit topological invariants of such unitary operators, based on a special easily computable flux insertion operator. For unitary operators that are SPT entanglers, these invariants are related to the cocycle that labels the SPT phase. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Marco Bianchi, Swagata Acharya, Florian Dirnberger, Julian Klein, Dimitar Pashov, Kseniia Mosina, Zdenek Sofer, Alexander N. Rudenko, Mikhail I. Katsnelson, Mark van Schilfgaarde, Malte Rösner, and Philip Hofmann Phys. Rev. B 107, 235107 (2023) – Published 2 June 2023  | Understanding the electronic structure of the layered magnetic semiconductor CrSBr is a formidable challenge for both experiment and theory. The material is highly insulating at low temperatures, preventing angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy investigations in the magnetically ordered phase. Theoretically, not only the non-local Coulomb interaction in the low-dimensional compound needs to be addressed properly, but a comparison to the experimental data also requires an approximate handling of the paramagnetic phase. Including these effects gives an excellent understanding of the experimentally observed band structure. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Fabian M. Faulstich, Kevin D. Stubbs, Qinyi Zhu, Tomohiro Soejima, Rohit Dilip, Huanchen Zhai, Raehyun Kim, Michael P. Zaletel, Garnet Kin-Lic Chan, and Lin Lin Phys. Rev. B 107, 235123 (2023) – Published 13 June 2023  | Twisted bilayer graphene (TBG) has garnered significant interest in condensed matter physics over the past few years. Here, the authors present numerical investigations of TBG implementing state-of-the-art quantum chemistry methods. Using a gauge-invariant order parameter, they show a C2z𝒯 phase transition at charge neutrality which persists at noninteger fillings near charge neutrality. The work is the first systematic study of TBG for noninteger fillings near charge neutrality. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Nicolás Morales-Durán, Pawel Potasz, and Allan H. MacDonald Phys. Rev. B 107, 235131 (2023) – Published 14 June 2023  | Semiconductor moiré materials host generalized Wigner crystal states at a series of fractional fillings, originating from localization of electrons in a subset of moiré sites in order to minimize long-range Coulomb interactions. Using exact diagonalization calculations, this paper studies the interplay between spin and charge degrees of freedom that gives rise to different magnetic orders within the crystalline states at fillings ν=1/3 and ν=2/3. The authors provide effective spin model descriptions of those phases, also addressing their Mott-Wigner melting transitions. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion K. Koepernik, O. Janson, Yan Sun, and J. van den Brink Phys. Rev. B 107, 235135 (2023) – Published 20 June 2023  | Wannier functions are a powerful tool for the determination of topological properties of solids based on band structure calculations. Here, the authors present a simple and efficient scheme to obtain symmetry-conserving Wannier functions especially suitable for local orbital codes. They analyze which approximation of the basis contribution to the Berry connection and curvature matrices preserves symmetry and argue which Bloch function gauge is best suited for model systems, where the basis is not explicitly known. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Max Wilson, Saverio Moroni, Markus Holzmann, Nicholas Gao, Filip Wudarski, Tejs Vegge, and Arghya Bhowmik Phys. Rev. B 107, 235139 (2023) – Published 21 June 2023  | The authors introduce here WAPNET, a periodic neural network (NN) variational ansatz for solving the ground state of a homogeneous electron gas with high accuracy over a broad range of the density coupling constant rs. Going beyond recent work for molecules, this contribution establishes NN models as flexible and powerful ansatz for electronic structure calculations in extended systems. In all density regimes, WAPNET-based variational Monte Carlo results are comparable to or better than state-of-the-art benchmarks obtained by diffusion Monte Carlo with iterative backflow. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Carlos Mejuto-Zaera and Michele Fabrizio Phys. Rev. B 107, 235150 (2023) – Published 29 June 2023  | Leveraging strong electronic correlations for device design hinges on an accurate theoretical description of their optoelectronic properties. Unfortunately, this requires numerically expensive tools, precluding an effective search for material candidates. The recent ghost Gutzwiller approximation promises a possible solution to this challenge, providing remarkable spectral accuracy despite its comparatively simple algorithmic ingredients. Here, the authors show how this method successfully captures strong correlation phenomenologies of multiorbital systems in excellent agreement with the established dynamical mean-field theory at a fraction of computational cost. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Antonio Picano, Francesco Grandi, and Martin Eckstein Phys. Rev. B 107, 245112 (2023) – Published 7 June 2023  | Symmetry-breaking phase transitions are ubiquitous in nature. The study of their dynamics in solids has often been performed using homogeneous order parameter theories. By microscopically modeling the photoinduced melting and recovery of a charge density wave, the authors instead show here that the transient dynamics can lead to disordered state, where the average order parameter is not representative of the atomic-scale configuration. This provides a possible minimal model description of the experimentally proposed inhomogeneous disordering pathway in photoinduced phase transitions. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Matthias Runge, Ahmed Ghalgaoui, Isabel Gonzalez-Vallejo, Fabian Thiemann, Michael Horn-von Hoegen, Klaus Reimann, Michael Woerner, and Thomas Elsaesser Phys. Rev. B 107, 245140 (2023) – Published 28 June 2023  | The semimetal bismuth displays a multifaceted nonlinear terahertz response, which is studied by two-dimensional terahertz (2D-THz) spectroscopy. Nonperturbative excitation drives intra- and interband electron transitions close to the narrow band gaps at the L points of the Brillouin zone, giving rise to pump-probe signals and high-harmonic generation. Preferential excitation in two of the six L valleys generates an anisotropic carrier distribution across the Brillouin zone, causing a hexagonal azimuthal angular dependence of the pump-probe signal. The concomitant symmetry reduction allows excitation of coherent phonon wavepackets along back-folded phonon coordinates. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Martina O. Soldini, Nikita Astrakhantsev, Mikel Iraola, Apoorv Tiwari, Mark H. Fischer, Roser Valentí, Maia G. Vergniory, Glenn Wagner, and Titus Neupert Phys. Rev. B 107, 245145 (2023) – Published 29 June 2023  | Topological quantum chemistry (TQC) is a successful framework for identifying noninteracting topological materials, based on the symmetry analysis of the Bloch Hamiltonian and on reference states known as atomic limits. However, TQC grinds to a halt once interactions are included. Here, the authors put forward a framework analogous to TQC, but employing n-particle Green's function techniques to indicate topology in interacting systems. Fundamentally, they define a class of interacting reference states that generalize the notion of atomic limits, which they call Mott atomic limits. The reference states are symmetry protected topological states. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Yujie Quan, Yubi Chen, and Bolin Liao Phys. Rev. B 107, 245202 (2023) – Published 14 June 2023  | Understanding the electrical and thermal transport properties of group-III nitride semiconductors is crucial for their electronic and thermoelectric applications. This study investigates the impact of the phonon drag effect, which refers to the momentum exchange between nonequilibrium phonons and electrons, on electronic transport in GaN and AlN. Results show that, even at room temperature, phonon drag significantly enhances mobility and the Seebeck coefficient. The study delves into the specific mechanisms for this. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion A. Banerjee, O. Lesser, M. A. Rahman, H.-R. Wang, M.-R. Li, A. Kringhøj, A. M. Whiticar, A. C. C. Drachmann, C. Thomas, T. Wang, M. J. Manfra, E. Berg, Y. Oreg, Ady Stern, and C. M. Marcus Phys. Rev. B 107, 245304 (2023) – Published 22 June 2023  | Intense scrutiny over the last decade of experiments on a variety of platforms aiming to identify topological superconductivity has raised the stakes in this search. Because nontopological Andreev bound states at or near zero energy can resemble topological states, signatures beyond spectroscopy of zero-energy modes are called for. A key signature of a topological phase transition - namely, the closing and reopening of the superconducting gap - is mostly unobserved in previous experiments. Here, this phenomenon is reported in planar Josephson junction devices made from superconductor-semiconductor hybrid materials. Consistency between experiment and numerics, along with a number of other characteristic signatures, including dependence on phase, magnetic field, and chemical potential, support the conclusion that the observed gap closing and reopening, with associated appearance of a zero-bias conductance peaks upon reopening, are associated with topological transition. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Lei Ren, Cedric Robert, Hanan Dery, Minhao He, Pengke Li, Dinh Van Tuan, Pierre Renucci, Delphine Lagarde, Takashi Taniguchi, Kenji Watanabe, Xiaodong Xu, and Xavier Marie Phys. Rev. B 107, 245407 (2023) – Published 6 June 2023  | The conduction band spin-orbit splitting ∆c has a strong impact on optical, transport, and spin-valley properties of 2D materials based on transition metal dichalcogenide monolayers. Here, the authors study charge tunable devices based on WSe2 and WS2 monolayers. In addition to the well-known radiative recombination of neutral and charged excitons, photoluminescence measurements highlight a weaker intensity optical transition. This line is interpreted as an impurity-assisted recombination of the negatively charged exciton (triplet trion), whose radiative recombination energy differs by ∆c from that of the trion's direct optically active recombination. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Claire Besson, Philipp Stegmann, Michael Schnee, Zeila Zanolli, Simona Achilli, Nils Wittemeier, Asmus Vierck, Robert Frielinghaus, Paul Kögerler, Janina Maultzsch, Pablo Ordejón, Claus M. Schneider, Alfred Hucht, Jürgen König, and Carola Meyer Phys. Rev. B 107, 245414 (2023) – Published 13 June 2023  | Molecular spintronics is usually based on paramagnetic or ferromagnetic (S ≠ 0) species. Here, the authors study small ensembles of two molecular antiferromagnets, {Mn4} and {Co4}, bound to carbon nanotube quantum dots. The current through the quantum dots shows a random telegraph signal caused by transitions between nondegenerate Stot = 0 states of individual molecular antiferromagnets. Statistical analysis shows that transitions between those states are independent in the case of {Co4} ensembles, while {Mn4} ensembles display long-lived coherent superposition involving multiple complexes. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Pok Man Tam, Christophe De Beule, and Charles L. Kane Phys. Rev. B 107, 245422 (2023) – Published 20 June 2023  | Quantized transport is a powerful probe of topological phases, and metals are topologically classified by the Euler characteristic of the Fermi sea. Here, the authors demonstrate analytically and numerically that a 2D metal proximitized by a Josephson π junction exhibits rectification for current along the junction. They introduce the rectified nonlocal conductance and show it is quantized by the Fermi sea topology. InAs-based heterostructures, as well as monolayer and bilayer graphene, are identified as promising platforms for demonstrating this effect. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Morteza Aghaee et al. (Microsoft Quantum) Phys. Rev. B 107, 245423 (2023) – Published 21 June 2023  | Topological phases of matter can enable highly stable qubits with small footprints, fast gate times, and digital control. These hardware-protected qubits must be fabricated with a material combination in which a topological phase can reliably be induced. The challenge: disorder can destroy the topological phase and obscure its detection. This paper reports on devices with low enough disorder to pass the topological gap protocol, thereby demonstrating gapped topological superconductivity and paving the way for a new stable qubit. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Letter Aidan Zabalo, Justin H. Wilson, Michael J. Gullans, Romain Vasseur, Sarang Gopalakrishnan, David A. Huse, and J. H. Pixley Phys. Rev. B 107, L220204 (2023) – Published 23 June 2023  | The measurement-induced phase transition (MIPT) represents a critical point connected to quantum information and nonequilibrium statistical physics. However, any quantum code utilizing the MIPT can be affected by noise introduced in device fabrication, appearing as static disorder. Leveraging analytics and large-scale simulations, the authors show that this static noise destabilizes the MIPT towards an infinite-randomness critical point. Their findings reveal the Harris criterion's applicability beyond equilibrium, indicating the relevance of perturbations at this phase transition. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Letter M. Grelier, F. Godel, A. Vecchiola, S. Collin, K. Bouzehouane, V. Cros, N. Reyren, R. Battistelli, H. Popescu, C. Léveillé, N. Jaouen, and F. Büttner Phys. Rev. B 107, L220405 (2023) – Published 22 June 2023  | The development and characterization of three-dimensional topological magnetic textures has become an important topic in modern magnetism from both fundamental and technological perspectives. Here, the authors stabilize skyrmionic cocoons by engineering the properties of Pt/Co/Al based multilayers with variable Co thickness. These new textures can be observed in transmission with x-ray holography. Their coexistence with skyrmion tubes is particularly interesting as they can open new paths for three-dimensional spintronics. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Letter Aman Kumar and Vikram Tripathi Phys. Rev. B 107, L220406 (2023) – Published 22 June 2023  | Historically, analytical treatments for the thermal Hall effect of many-body systems have been based around an underlying quasiparticle assumption. The authors introduce here a new purification-based tensor network method for the thermal Hall response of gapped systems, making no prior quasiparticle assumption. Motivated by reports of half-quantized thermal Hall response of Kitaev materials near field-suppressed magnetic order, the authors calculate the thermal Hall response in this parameter regime and find that it is large, but non-universal, ruling out the possibility of a revival of Ising topological order and a Majorana Hall state through this route. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Letter Wei Wei, Wenjie Sun, Yue Sun, Yongqiang Pan, Gangjian Jin, Feng Yang, Yueying Li, Zengwei Zhu, Yuefeng Nie, and Zhixiang Shi Phys. Rev. B 107, L220503 (2023) – Published 12 June 2023  | The recent discovery of superconductivity in nickelates, sharing structural and electronic similarities with cuprates, is crucial for understanding the high-Tc superconducting pairing mechanism. Here, the authors study the Hc2 of a high-quality La0.8Sr0.2NiO2 thin film. Significantly large Hc2 (∼ 40 T for H || c and ∼ 52 T for H || ab) are obtained. The anisotropy decreases from ∼10 near Tc to ∼1.5 at 2 K, which confirms a crossover from 2D to 3D superconductivity based on the angle dependence of Hc2. | | | | | | Featured in Physics Editors' Suggestion Letter F. Le Mardelé, J. Wyzula, I. Mohelsky, S. Nasrallah, M. Loh, S. Ben David, O. Toledano, D. Tolj, M. Novak, G. Eguchi, S. Paschen, N. Barišić, J. Chen, A. Kimura, M. Orlita, Z. Rukelj, Ana Akrap, and D. Santos-Cottin Phys. Rev. B 107, L241101 (2023) – Published 1 June 2023  | TlBiSSe is a 3D Dirac semimetal that exists at the interface between a topological insulator, TlBiS2, and a trivial insulator, TlBiSe2. It is one of the few systems with an ideal band structure, exhibiting only conical dispersive bands over almost half an electronvolt. Here, the authors find a rare unequivocal signature of a 3D Dirac cone in its optical and magneto-optical properties, achieved by carefully controlled synthesis that places the Fermi level very close to the Dirac point. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Letter E. Greenberg, R. Nazarov, A. Landa, J. Ying, R. Q. Hood, B. Hen, R. Jeanloz, V. B. Prakapenka, V. V. Struzhkin, G. Kh. Rozenberg, and I. V. Leonov Phys. Rev. B 107, L241103 (2023) – Published 12 June 2023  | Iron oxide (FexO) serves as a model constituent of Earth-like planetary interiors, reflecting the distinctive high-pressure chemistry of their cores and rocky mantles. Under pressure it undergoes crystal structural transitions and metallization, accompanied by a local-moment collapse of Fe ions. Here, the experiments and theoretical calculations characterize the complex interplay between electron states and structural phases, resulting in a rich phase diagram and revealing the existence of a metallic high-spin state of iron at the conditions near those of Earth's core-mantle boundary. | | | | | | Editors' Suggestion Letter Lei-Lei Nian, Bo Zheng, and Jing-Tao Lü Phys. Rev. B 107, L241405 (2023) – Published 14 June 2023  | Quantum-dot circuit quantum electrodynamics (QD-cQED) has enabled the probe and control of light-matter interaction at the elementary level, with the demonstration of nonclassical photon sources driven by inelastic electron tunneling. Due to the absence of the photon blockade mechanism, an general scheme for photon statistics engineering in QD-cQED is lacking. Based on current-driven joint interference effect, the authors propose here an all-electrical scheme to achieve arbitrary photon statistics with classical or quantum correlation by simply controlling bias voltage. | | | | | | | |
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