Dans cette thèse, nous étudions l’effet du désordre magnétique sur les propriétés de transport électronique du graphène et des isolants topologiques 2D de type HgTe. Le graphène et les isolants topologiques sont des matériaux dont les excitations électroniques sont assimilées à des fermions de Dirac sans masse. L’influence des impuretés magnétiques sur les propriétés de transport du graphène est étudiée dans le régime de forts champs électriques. En conséquence de la production de paires électron-trou, la réponse devient non linéaire et dépend de la polarisation magnétique. Nous étudions une transition entre un isolant topologique bi-dimensionnel conducteur, caractérisé par une conductance G = 2 (en quantum de conductance) et un isolant de Chern avec G = 1, induite par des impuretés magnétiques polarisées. / In this thesis, we study the effect of a magnetic disorder on the electronic transport properties of graphene and HgTe-type 2D topological insulators. Graphene and topological insulators are materials whose electronic excitations are treated as massless Dirac fermions.The influence of magnetic impurities on the transport properties of graphene is investigated in the regime of strong applied electric fields. As a result of electron-hole pair creation, the response becomes nonlinear and dependent on the magnetic polarization.We investigate a transition between a two-dimensional topological insulator conduction state, characterized by a conductance G = 2 (in conductance quantum) and a Chern insulator with G = 1, induced by polarized magnetic impurities.

The understanding of new emerging unconventional ground states is a great challenge for experimental and theoretical solid-state physicists. New ground states are developing, where different energy scales compete, leading to a high sensitivity of the system to external tuning parameters like doping, pressure or magnetic field. The exploration of superconductivity proved to be a fascinating and challenging scientific undertaking. Discovered by H. Kammerlingh Onnes in 1911, prior to the development of the quantum theory of matter, superconductivity was defying a microscopic theory for more than four decades until the BCS theory was formulated in 1957 by J. Bardeen, L. N. Cooper and J. R. Schrieffer. Superconductivity of most of the simple metals or metallic alloys is well described within the frame of the BCS scenario, however, in the last thirty years numerous new superconducting materials were found to exhibit exotic properties not accounted for by the BCS theory. Among them are included the high-Tc compounds, the heavy-fermion superconductors and as well the organic superconductors. It was the purpose of this work to probe different facets of superconductivity in heavy-fermion and in low-dimensional metallic compounds. This dissertation is divided into six chapters. After this introduction, in Chapter 1 we will outline the basic theoretical concepts later needed for the analysis of the experimental results. In Chapter 2 we briefly introduce the experimental techniques with a special focus on the new pressure cells developed during this thesis and used for the measurements presented in Chapters 3 to 5. In Chapter 3 the possible realization of the inhomogeneous superconducting FFLO state in CeCoIn5 is studied by specific heat measurements under hydrostatic pressure, while in Chapter 4 the results of AC specific heat experiments on UBe13 under uniaxial pressure are presented. The ambient pressure properties as well as results obtained by resistivity measurements under hydrostatic pressure on the one-dimensional metallic compounds TlxV6S8 are discussed in Chapter 5. At the end, Chapter 6 summarizes and concludes this thesis.

Motivated by the recent experimental progress in the search for Majorana fermions, we identify signatures of topological superconductivity and propose realistic experiments to observe these signatures. In the first part of this thesis, we study charge transport through a topological superconductor with a pair of Majorana end states, coupled to leads via quantum dots with resonant levels. The nonlocality of the Majorana bound states opens the possibility of Cooper pair splitting with nonlocal shot noise. In the space of quantum dot energy levels, we find a characteristic four-peaked cloverlike pattern for the strength of noise due to Cooper pair splitting, distinct from the single ellipsoidal peak found in the absence of Majorana end states. Semiconductor-superconductor hybrid systems are promising candidates for the realiza- tion Majorana fermions and topological order in solid state devices. In the second part, we show that the topological order is mirrored in the excitation spectra and can be observed in nonlinear Coulomb blockade transport through a ring-shaped nanowire. Especially, the ex- citation spectrum is almost independent of magnetic flux in the topologically trivial phase but acquires a characteristic h/e magnetic flux periodicity in the nontrivial phase. The transition between the trivial and nontrivial phase is reflected in the closing and reopening of an excitation gap. In the third part, we investigate characteristic features in the spin response of doped three-dimensional topological insulators with odd-parity unequal-spin superconducting pairing, which are predicted to have gapless Majorana surface modes. These Majorana modes contribute to the spin response, giving rise to a characteristic temperature behavior of the Knight shift and the spin-lattice relaxation time in magnetic resonance experiments.

We perform microscopic mean-field studies of topological order in a two-dimensional topological superconductor in the Bogoliubov-de Gennes (BdG) formalism. By adopting a two-dimensional s-wave topological superconductivity (TSC) model on a minimal tight-binding system, we solve the BdG equations self-consistently to obtain not only the superconducting order parameter, but also the Hartree potential. By computing the Thouless, Kohmoto, Nightingale, and den Nijs (TKNN) number and investigating the bulk-boundary correspondence, we study the nature of Abelian and non-Abelian TSC in terms of self-consistent solutions to the BdG equations. In particular, we examine the effects of temperature and a single non-magnetic impurity deposited in the centre of the system and how they vary depending on topology. We find that the non-Abelian phase exhibits signs of unconventional superconductivity, and by examining the behaviour of this phase under both low and high Zeeman field conditions, we show that the magnitude of the Zeeman field largely dictates the susceptibility of the system to temperature. Furthermore, we investigate the possible interplay of charge density waves (CDW) and TSC. By self-consistently solving for the mean fields, we show that TSC and topological CDW are degenerate ground states---with the same excitation spectrum in the presence of surfaces---and thus can coexist in the Abelian phase. The effects of a non-magnetic impurity, which tends to pin the phase of charge density modulations, are examined in the context of topological CDW.

Recent developments in the study of Majorana fermions through braid theory have shown that there exists a set of interchanges that allow for the realization of true quantum computation. Alongside these developments there have been studies of topological superconductivity which show the existence of states that exhibit non-Abelian exchange statistics. Motivated by these developments we study the differences between Abelian and non-Abelian topological phase in the vortex state through the Bogoliubov de-Gennes (BdG) formalism. Due to our interests in low-energy states we first implement computationally efficient algorithms for calculating the mean fields and computing eigenpairs in an arbitrary energy window. We have shown that these algorithms adequately reproduce results obtained from a variety of other techniques and show that these algorithms retain spatial inhomogeneity information. Our results show topological superconductivity and vortex states can coexist; providing a means to realize zero-energy bound states, the number of which corresponds to the topological phase. With the use of our methods we present results contrasting the differences between Abelian and non-Abelian topological phase. Our calculations show that an increase in Zeeman field affects numerous parameters within topological superconductors. It causes the order parameter to become more sensitive to temperature variations in addition to a reduced rate of recovery to the bulk value from a vortex core. The increased field suppresses spin-up local density of states (LDOS) in close proximity to the vortex core for low-energy states. Further, it narrows the spectral gap at the lattice centre. Both energy spectrum and LDOS calculations confirm that trivial topological phase have no zero-energy bound states, Abelian phases have an even number, while non-Abelian phases have an odd number.

Thesis advisor: Ziqiang Wang / Exotic phases and associated phase transitions in low dimensions have been a fascinating frontier and a driving force in modern condensed matter physics since the 80s. Due to strong correlation effect, they are beyond the description of mean-field theory based on a single-particle picture and Landau's symmetry-breaking theory of phase transitions. These new phases of matter require new physical quantities to characterize them and new languages to describe them. This thesis is devoted to the study on exotic phases of correlated electrons in two spatial dimensions. We present the following efforts in understanding two-dimensional exotic phases: (1) Using Zn vertex algebra, we give a complete classification and characterization of different one-component fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states, including their ground state properties and quasiparticles. (2) In terms of a non-unitary transformation, we obtain the exact form of statistical interactions between composite fermions in the lowest Landau level (LLL) with v=1/(2m), m=1,2... By studying the pairing instability of composite fermions we theoretically explains recently observed FQHE in LLL with v=1/2,1/4. (3) We classify different Z2 spin liquids (SLs) on kagome lattice in Schwinger-fermion representation using projective symmetry group (PSG). We propose one most promising candidate for the numerically discovered SL state in nearest-neighbor Heisenberg model on kagome lattice}. (4) By analyzing different Z2 spin liquids on honeycomb lattice within PSG classification, we find out the nature of the gapped SL phase in honeycomb lattice Hubbard model, labeled sublattice pairing state (SPS) in Schwinger-fermion representation. We also identify the neighboring magnetic phase of SPS as a chiral-antiferromagnetic (CAF) phase and analyze the continuous phase transition between SPS and CAF phase. For the first time we identify a SL called 0-flux state in Schwinger-boson representation with one (SPS) in Schwinger-fermion representation by a duality transformation. (5) We show that when certain non-collinear magnetic order coexists in a singlet nodal superconductor, there will be Majorana bound states in vortex cores/on the edges of the superconductor. This proposal opens a window for discovering Majorana fermions in strongly correlated electrons. (6) Motivated by recent numerical discovery of fractionalized phases in topological flat bands, we construct wavefunctions for spin-polarized fractional Chern insulators (FCI) and time reversal symmetric fractional topological insulators (FTI) by parton approach. We show that lattice symmetries give rise to different FCI/FTI states even with the same filling fraction. For the first time we construct FTI wavefunctions in the absence of spin conservation which preserve all lattice symmetries. The constructed wavefunctions also set up the framework for future variational Monte Carlo simulations. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Physics.

Quantum phase transitions (QPT) on the border of magnetism have provided a fertile hunting ground for the discovery of new states of matter, for example; the marginal Fermi Liquid and non Fermi Liquid states as well high T$_C$ cuprate and magnetically mediated superconductivity. In this thesis I present work on three materials in which it may be possible to tune the system through a magnetic QPT with the application of hydrostatic pressure. Although the details of the underlying physics are different in each of the materials, they are linked by the possibility of finding new states on the border of magnetism. Applying hydrostatic pressure, we have suppressed the ferromagnetic (FM) transition in metallic Fe$_2$P to very low temperature and to a potential QPT. Counter-intuitive broadening of the magnetic hysteresis leading up to the FM-AFM QPT may well be a crucial clue as to the nature of the model needed to understand this phase transition. A sharp increase in the quasi-particle scattering cross-section as well as the residual resistivity accompany a departure from the quadratic temperature dependence of the resistivity. This possible deviation from Fermi liquid behaviour is stable over a significant range of temperature. The unexplained upturn in the resistivity of CeGe that accompanies the AFM transition was studied under pressure. Pressure increased the residual resistivity as well as decreasing the relative size of the upturn, but had a moderate effect on the Neel temperature. The insensitivity of the N$\acute e$el temperature to pressure has been compared to its relative sensitivity to applied feld. The existence of the upturn and its evolution with pressure and applied feld can reasonably be argued to be due to the details of the electron band structure in the system. By applying pressure we have drastically reduced the resistivity of the insulating antiferromagnet NiPS$_3$. Concurrent work on FePS$_3$ has shown metallisation under pressure. It seems reasonable to speculate that NiPS$_3$ may also metallise at higher pressure. The energy gap is narrowed in both materials as pressure is increased. Magnetisation measurements have revealed a low temperature upturn indicating some possible ferromagnetic component or proximity to another magnetic state. A peak in the magnetisation is also seen at 45K in zero-feld cooled measurements. Both of these features point to a system with a complex magnetic ground state.

The following dissertation presents a comprehensive study of the interaction between Dirac fermion quasiparticles (DFQs) and surface phonons on the surfaces of the topological insulators Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3. Inelastic helium atom surface scattering (HASS) spectroscopy and time of flight (TOF) techniques were used to measure the surface phonon dispersion of these materials along the two high-symmetry directions of the surface Brillouin zone (SBZ). Two anomalies common to both materials are exhibited in the experimental data. First, there is an absence of Rayleigh acoustic waves on the surface of these materials, pointing to weak coupling between the surface charge density and the surface acoustic phonon modes and potential applications for soundproofing technologies. Secondly, both materials exhibit an out-of-plane polarized optical phonon mode beginning at the SBZ center and dispersing to lower energy with increasing wave vector along both high-symmetry directions of the SBZ. This trend terminates in a V-shaped minimum at a wave vector corresponding to 2kF for each material, after which the dispersion resumes its upward trend. This phenomenon constitutes a strong Kohn anomaly and can be attributed to the interaction between the surface phonons and DFQs. To quantify the coupling between the optical phonons experiencing strong renormalization and the DFQs at the surface, a phenomenological model was constructed based within the random phase approximation. Fitting the theoretical model to the experimental data allowed for the extraction of the matrix elements of the coupling Hamiltonian and the modifications to the surface phonon propagator encoded in the phonon self energy. This allowed, for the first time, calculation of phonon mode-specific quasiparticle-phonon coupling λⱱ(q) from experimental data. Additionally, an averaged coupling parameter was determined for both materials yielding ¯λ^Te ≈ 2 and ¯λ^Se ≈ 0.7. These values are significantly higher than those of typical metals, underscoring the strong coupling between optical surface phonons and DFQs in topological insulators. In an effort to connect experimental results obtained from phonon and photoemission spectroscopies, a computational process for taking coupling information from the phonon perspective and translating it to the DFQ perspective was derived. The procedure involves using information obtained from HASS measurements (namely the coupling matrix elements and optical phonon dispersion) as input to a Matsubara Green function formalism, from which one can obtain the real and imaginary parts of the DFQ self energy. With these at hand it is possible to calculate the DFQ spectral function and density of states, allowing for comparison with photoemission and scanning tunneling spectroscopies. The results set the necessary energy resolution and extraction methodology for calculating ¯λ from the DFQ perspective. Additionally, determining ¯λ from the calculated spectral functions yields results identical to those obtained from HASS, proving the self-consistency of the approach.

Orientador: Antonio Soares de Castro / Banca: Marcelo Batista Hott / Banca: Pedro Almeida Vieira Alberto / Banca: Luis Rafael Benito Castro / Banca: Edisom de Souza Moreira junior / Resumo: O espalhamento relativístico de bósons de spin 0 e de férmions de spin 1/2 por potenciais coulombianos esfericamente simétricos 'e analisado em detalhes com uma mistura arbitrária de acoplamentos escalar e vetorial. Mostra-se que a série de ondas parciais, seja para bósons ou férmions, se reduz à amplitude de espalhamento de Rutherford exata quando os potenciais escalar e vetorial têm a mesma magnitude. O mesmo acontece na aproximação de potenciais fracos. O comportamento da amplitude de espalhamento próximo das condições que fornecem a forma fechada é também discutido. A partir dos polos complexos da amplitude de onda parcial, soluções exatas de estados ligados para partículas e antipartículas em diferentes circunstâncias são obtidas. A quebra perturbativa da degenerescência acidental aparecendo em um par de casos especiais é relacionado com a não conservação do vetor de Runge-Lenz. No caso de férmions, as amplitudes de ondas parciais têm formas fechadas não apenas para as simetrias de spin e pseudospin mas também quando há uma ligeira quebra das mesmas. Mostra-se que no limite não relativístico, a seção de choque diferencial obtida se reduz para a seção de choque de Rutherford para simetrias de spin e pseudospin exatas e para a seção de choque de Mott quando a simetria é suavemente quebrada / Abstract: The relativistic scattering of spin-0 bosons and spin-1/2 fermions by spherically symmetric Coulomb potentials is analyzed in detail with an arbitrary mixing of vector and scalar couplings. It is shown that the partial wave series for both bosons and fermions reduces the scattering amplitude to that one resulting in the Rutherford formula exactly when the vector and scalar potentials have the same magnitude. The same happen in the approximation for weak potentials. The behavior of the scattering amplitude near the conditions that furnish its closed form is also discussed. From the complex poles of the partial scattering amplitude for bosons the exact closed form of bound-state solutions for both particles and antiparticles with different scenarios for the coupling constants are obtained. Perturbative breaking of the accidental degeneracy appearing in a pair of special cases is related to the nonconservation of the Runge-Lenz vector. In the case of fermions, the closed form for the partial wave series occurs not only for the spin and pseudospin symmetries but also when there is a slight breaking of the same. It is shown that in the non-relativistic limit, the differential cross section obtained reduces to Rutherford's cross section when there are spin and pseudospin symmetries and to Mott differential cross section when the symmetry is slightly broken / Doutor

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento CientÃfico e TecnolÃgico / Uma das formas de resolver o Problema de Hierarquia e por consequÃncia unificar as forÃas fundamentais da natureza à assumir, sob o ponto de vista teÃrico, que nosso espaÃo quadrimensional (brana) està inserido em um espaÃo de dimensionalidade maior (bulk). Chamamos de dimensÃo extra toda aquela que nÃo està presente em nossa brana. A idÃia de incluir dimensÃes extras para unificaÃÃo de forÃas fundamentais data dos anos 30 do sÃculo passado, com a inovadora proposta de Kaluza e Klein, e vem evoluindo sua formulaÃÃo desde entÃo. Assim, outras propostas inovadoras como aquela do trabalho de Randall e Sundrum, criaram novas possibilidades para o estudo, embora seja interessante citar que nÃo possuÃmos nenhuma evidÃncia experimental atà o presente momento de que tais dimensÃes existam. PartÃculas fundamentais fermiÃnicas tÃm como uma de suas propriedades interessantes a existÃncia dos modos quirais direito e esquerdo, informaÃÃo esta bastante estudada no Modelo PadrÃo assim como em Supersimetria. Nesse trabalho tratamos sobre a localizaÃÃo dos modos quirais, sem massa e massivo, de campos fermiÃnicos de spin 1/2 em uma espaÃo de seis dimensÃes do tipo Conifold Resolvido. Este espaÃo possui um parÃmetro regulÃvel, o qual permite obter geometrias de outros trabalhos da literatura como casos particulares. AlÃm desta generalizaÃÃo, foi possÃvel encontrar outros resultados interessantes como o espessamento da brana e suavizaÃÃo do modelo estudado em 6D. Observaremos tambÃm que a relaÃÃo dos modos quirais à estritamente dependente da escolha do acoplamento de campos utilizado. Para fÃrmions livres, os modos quirais serÃo idÃnticos. Quanto à localizaÃÃo de Modos Massivos, verificaremos que ao reescrever a equaÃÃo de Dirac, obtida a partir de nossa aÃÃo, em uma forma do tipo equaÃÃo de SchrÃdinger, encontraremos um termo de potencial. Estudaremos que ao se utilizar os fatores derivados da sexta dimensÃo como um termo de acoplamento, obteremos resultado semelhante ao de um acoplamento Yukawa em cinco dimensÃes / One way to solve the hierarchy problem and therefore unify the fundamental forces is to assume, under the theoretical point of view, that our four-dimensional space (Brane) is housed in a space of higher dimensionality (Bulk). We call all that extra dimension which is not present in our Brana. The idea of extra dimensions to include unification of fundamental forces date from the 30s of last century, with the innovative proposal of Kaluza and Klein, and has been evolving ever since its formulation. Thus, other innovative proposals like that of the work of Randall and Sundrum have created new possibilities for the study, although it is curious that cite not have any experimental evidence to date that these dimensions exist. Fundamental fermionic particles have as one of its interesting properties the existence of left and right chiral modes, this information widely studied in the Standard Model and Supersymmetry in the call. In this article we treat on the location of the chiral modes, massless and massive, the fermionic fields of spin 1/2 in a six-dimensional space of type Conifold solved. This space has an adjustable parameter which allows to recover the geometry of other works of literature. Beyond this generalization was possible to find other interesting results as the thickening of the Brana and smoothing the model studied in 6D. Looking at work that the ratio of chiral modes is strictly dependent on the choice of coupling fields used. For free fermions chiral modes are identical. Regarding the location of Massive modes, we find that by rewriting the Dirac equation, obtained from our action, in a way kind of SchrÃdinger equation, we find a term potential. We found that when using the factors derived from the sixth dimension as a term coupling, we obtain results similar to a Yukawa coupling in five dimensions