Chiral universality class of the normal-superconducting and the exciton condensation transition on the surface of topological insulator

TL;DR

This paper investigates the quantum phase transitions on the surface of topological insulators, revealing a new chiral universality class for superconducting and excitonic states driven by relativistic Dirac fermions.

Contribution

It develops a microscopic BCS framework for Dirac systems, identifying a quantum critical point and classifying the transition into a novel chiral universality class.

Findings

Quantum critical point governs zero-temperature transitions.

Transitions belong to the chiral universality class.

Application to surface superconductivity experiments in topological insulators.

Abstract

New two dimensional systems like surface of topological insulator and graphene offer a possibility to experimentally investigate situations considered "exotic" just a decade ago. One of those is the quantum phase transition of the "chiral" type in electronic systems with relativistic spectrum. Phonon mediated ("conventional") pairing in the Dirac semimetal appearing on the surface of topological insulator leads to transition into a chiral superconducting state, while exciton condensation in these gapless systems has been envisioned long time ago in the physics of the narrow band semiconductors. Starting from the microscopic Dirac Hamiltonian with local attraction or repulsion, the BCS type gaussian approximation is developed in the framework of functional integrals. It is shown that due to an "ultra-relativistic" dispersion relation there is a quantum critical point governing the zero temperature transition to a superconducting or the exciton condensed state. The quantum transitions that have critical exponents very different from the conventional ones. They belong to the chiral universality class. We discuss the application of these results to recent experiments in which surface superconductivity was found in topological insulators and estimate feasibility of the phonon pairing.