Odd-Parity Superconductivity near an Inversion Breaking Quantum Critical Point in One Dimension

We study how an inversion-breaking quantum critical point affects the ground state of a one-dimensional electronic liquid with repulsive interaction and spin-orbit coupling. We find that regardless of the interaction strength, the critical fluctuations always lead to a gap in the electronic spin sec...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ruhman, Yehonatan, Kozii, Vladyslav, Fu, Liang
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Physical Society 2017
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/110252
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0695-6500
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8803-1017
Description
Summary:We study how an inversion-breaking quantum critical point affects the ground state of a one-dimensional electronic liquid with repulsive interaction and spin-orbit coupling. We find that regardless of the interaction strength, the critical fluctuations always lead to a gap in the electronic spin sector. The origin of the gap is a two-particle backscattering process, which becomes relevant due to renormalization of the Luttinger parameter near the critical point. The resulting spin-gapped state is topological and can be considered as a one-dimensional version of a spin-triplet superconductor. Interestingly, in the case of a ferromagnetic critical point, the Luttinger parameter is renormalized in the opposite manner, such that the system remains nonsuperconducting.