A grand unified theory of exotic superconductivity?

A grand unified theory of exotic superconductivity?: In the current paper, Davis and Lee propose and demonstrate within a simple model that antiferromagnetic electron interactions can drive both superconductivity and the various intertwined phases across different families of high-Tc superconductors. These intertwined phases and the emergence of superconductivity, they say, can be explained by how the antiferromagnetic influence interacts with another variable in their theoretical description, namely the "Fermi surface topology..."


"The basic assumption of our theory is that when we rip away all the complicated intertwined phases, underneath there is an ordinary metal," said Lee. "It is the antiferromagnetic interactions in this metal that make the electrons want to form the various states. The complex behavior originates from the system fluctuating from one state to another, e.g., from superconductor to charge density waves to nematic order. It is the antiferromagnetic interaction acting on the underlying simple metal that causes all the complexity."