Fragile Topology and Flat-Band Superconductivity in the Strong-Coupling Regime

Abstract

In flat bands, superconductivity can lead to surprising transport effects. The superfluid “mobility”, in the form of the superfluid weight Ds, does not draw from the curvature of the band but has a purely band-geometric origin. In a mean-field description, a nonzero Chern number or fragile topology sets a lower bound for Ds, which, via the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless mechanism, might explain the relatively high superconducting transition temperature measured in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (MATBG). For fragile topology, relevant for the bilayer system, the fate of this bound for finite temperature and beyond the mean-field approximation remained, however, unclear. Here, we numerically use exact Monte Carlo simulations to study an attractive Hubbard model in flat bands with topological properties akin to those of MATBG. We find a superconducting phase transition with a critical temperature that scales linearly with the interaction strength. Then, we investigate the robustness of the superconducting state to the addition of trivial bands that may or may not trivialize the fragile topology. Our results substantiate the validity of the topological bound beyond the mean-field regime and further stress the importance of fragile topology for flat-band superconductivity.

Source-reported materials — not catalogue approval

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