Representation Theory for Massless Quasiparticles in Bogoliubov-de Gennes Systems

TL;DR

This paper develops a representation theory approach to classify and analyze gapless quasiparticles in Bogoliubov-de Gennes systems, revealing how symmetries protect various types of zero modes and dispersions.

Contribution

It introduces a projective representation framework for BdG systems to systematically classify gapless quasiparticles and their symmetry-protected properties.

Findings

Charge conjugation symmetry can produce various dispersions at high symmetry points.

Quantum number protected level crossings lead to zero modes along high symmetry lines.

Inversion and time reversal symmetry can protect zero modes at generic k points.

Abstract

Gapless quasiparticles can exist in the Bogoliubov-de Gennes (BdG) Hamiltonians in the mean field description of superconductors (SCs), fermionic superfluids (SFs) and quantum spin liquids (QSLs). The mechanism of gapless quasiparticles in superconductors was studied in literature based on the homotopy theory or symmetry-indicators. However, important properties of the gapless quasiparticles including the degeneracy, the energy-momentum dispersion and the responses to external probe fields need to be determined. In the present work, we investigate gapless quasiparticles in general BdG systems by using projective representation theory for the full `symmetry' groups formed by combinations of lattice, spin and charge operations. We find that (I) charge conjugation (or effective charge conjugation) symmetry can yield gapless quasiparticles with linear, quadratic or higher order dispersions at high symmetry points of the Brillouin zone; (II) different quantum numbers protected level crossing can give rise to zero modes along high symmetry lines; (III) combined spatial inversion and time reversal symmetry can protect zero modes appearing at generic $k$ points. To obtain the low energy properties of gapless quasiparticles, the $k\cdot p$ theory is provided using a high efficient method--the Hamiltonian approach. Based on generalized band representation theory for BdG systems, several lattice models are constructed to illustrate the above results. Our theory provides a method to classify nodal SCs/SFs/QSLs with given symmetries, and enlightens the realization of Majorana type massless quasiparticles in condensed matter physics.