Absence of Floating Phase in Superconductors with Time-reversal Symmetry Breaking on any Lattice

TL;DR

This paper proves that in certain multi-component superconductors with time-reversal symmetry breaking, a floating phase with lower TRSB transition temperature than the superconducting transition cannot exist, ensuring high-temperature TRSB superconductivity.

Contribution

It mathematically rules out the existence of a floating phase in strong coupling regimes of $U(1)\times \mathbb{Z}_2$ Hamiltonians, confirming the presence of high-$T_c$ TRSB superconductivity.

Findings

Correlation functions of $U(1)$ spins are bounded by those of $\\mathbb{Z}_2$ spins.

High-$T_c$ TRSB superconductivity is guaranteed in a large class of Hamiltonians.

The property also applies to a regime of the generalized XY model on any lattice.

Abstract

Due to the interplay of multi-component order parameters (e.g., a twisted bilayer superconductor with inter-layer Josephson coupling or a frustrated ($n\ge 3$)-band superconductor), a superconductor can possess a $U(1)\times \mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry, corresponding to the superconducting $T_c$ and time-reversal symmetry breaking transition $T_\text{TRSB}$, respectively. It was then conjectured that in this class of Hamiltonians, there exists a vast parameter regime $\mathcal{O}$ such that the system exhibits vestigial TRSB, i.e., $T_\text{TRSB} > T_c$, while at the boundary $\partial \mathcal{O}$, the system possesses a single phase transition $T_\text{TRSB}=T_c$. In this paper, we provide evidence towards this conjecture by mathematically eliminating the possibility of a floating phase, i.e., $T_\text{TRSB} < T_c$, for the strong coupling regime. More specifically, we prove that the correlation functions of $U(1)$ spins are bounded above by that of $\mathbb{Z}_2$ spins for all temperatures and lattice structures (e.g., $\mathbb{Z}^d$ for all $d$). In particular, this guarantees the existence of high-$T_c$ TRSB (and consequently topological) superconductivity in a large class of Hamiltonians. Note that the same property can also be proven for a certain parameter regime ($\Delta \ge 4/5$) of the generalized XY model on any lattice structure, despite belonging to an entirely distinct class of $U(1)\times \mathbb{Z}_2$ Hamiltonians.