Pathways from a chiral superconductor to a composite Fermi liquid

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Authors: Yunchao Zhang, Henry Shackleton, T. Senthil
Cited by: 2
References: 57

Abstract

Recent experiments have reported chiral time-reversal broken superconductivity in $n$-layer rhombohedral graphene for $n = 4,5, 6$. Introducing a moiré potential by alignement with a hexagonal boron nitride substrate suppresses the superconductivity but leads instead to various fractional quantum anomalous Hall phenomena. Motivated by these observations, we consider the fate of the phase transition between (a chiral) Landau Fermi liquid (LFL) metal and a Composite Fermi Liquid (CFL) metal in the presence of attractive interactions. These are parent states, respectively, for the superconductor and the fractional quantum Hall states. For weak attractive interactions, the LFL is usually unstable to superconductivity while the CFL is stable. This raises the possibility of a direct continuous phase transition between the chiral superconductor and the CFL. However, we show that generically the LFL close to the transition to the CFL is stable against superconductivity. Thus the evolution between the CFL and chiral superconductor goes through an intermediate stable LFL phase for weak attractive interactions. With stronger interactions, the evolution can instead go through a non-Abelian paired quantum Hall state.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Topological Materials and Phenomena Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism Rare-earth and actinide compounds

Publication details

Journal / source
Physical review. B./Physical review. B
Publisher
American Physical Society (APS)
Volume
113
Issue
14
Publication date
25 March 2026
Language
EN