Hidden topological order in the heavy fermion metal URu$_2$Si$_2$

Details Hidden topological order in the heavy fermion metal URu$_2$Si$_2$ Hidden topological order in the heavy fermion metal URu$_2$Si$_2$

2012-01-11

arxiv.org/abs/1201.2246v1

Physics

Condensed Matter

Strongly Correlated Electrons

5 pages, 2 figures

Scientific paper

We present a radically novel order parameter for the hidden order state of URu$_2$Si$_2$ material. We show via {\it ab-initio} calculation and low-energy effective tight-binding model that an incommensurate Fermi surface nesting in the partially-filled $f$-states renders a spin-orbit coupling density wave in the hidden-order state. An observable quantity for this order parameter is the polarized total angular momentum $\Delta m_J$=$\pm$2, consistent with neutron scattering measurements. The staggered spin-orbit coupling breaks spontaneous rotational symmetry, while time-reversal symmetry remains intact, and thus can be destroyed by magnetic field. We also compute the topological properties to show that the hidden-order gap opening is associated with a trivial to non-trivial topological phase transition. Taken together, the hidden order phase transition defines a novel `topological quantum critical point', encoding both a topological and a second-order phase transition as a function of magnetic field.

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