hide
Free keywords:
-
Abstract:
In an externally applied magnetic field, ultrapure crystals of the
bilayer compound Sr3Ru2O7 undergo a metamagnetic transition below a
critical temperature, T-*, which varies as a function of the angle
between the magnetic field H and the Ru-O planes. Moreover, T-*
approaches zero when H is perpendicular to the planes. This putative
"metamagnetic quantum critical point," however, is pre-empted by a
nematic fluid phase with order one resistive anisotropy in the ab plane.
In a "realistic" bilayer model with moderate strength local Coulomb
interactions, the existence of a sharp divergence of the electronic
density of states near a van Hove singularity of the
quasi-one-dimensional bands, and the presence of spin-orbit coupling
results in a mean-field phase diagram which accounts for many of these
experimentally observed phenomena. Although the spin-orbit coupling is
not overly strong, it destroys the otherwise near-perfect Fermi-surface
nesting and hence suppresses spin-density-wave ordering.
