Topological chiral superconductivity beyond pairing in a Fermi liquid

Abstract

We investigate a mechanism to produce superconductivity by strong purely repulsive interactions for flat dispersion ɛ∼k4 without using the pairing instability in a Fermi liquid. The resulting superconductors break both time-reversal and reflection symmetries in the orbital motion of electrons, and they exhibit nontrivial topological order. Our findings suggest that this topological chiral superconductivity is more likely to emerge near or between a fully spin-valley polarized metallic phase and a Wigner crystal phase. These topological chiral superconductors can be fully or partially spin-valley polarized. For partial spin-valley polarization, the ratios of electron densities associated with different spin-valley quantum numbers are quantized as simple rational numbers. Furthermore, many of these topological chiral superconductors exhibit charge-4 or higher condensation, neutral quasiparticles with fractional statistics, and/or gapless chiral edge states. Two of the topological chiral superconductors are in the same phases as the “spin”-triplet or spinless p+ip BCS superconductor, while others are in different phases than from any BCS superconductors. The same mechanism is also used to produce anyon superconductivity between fractional anomalous quantum Hall states in the presence of a periodic potential.

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