Emergence of higher order rotational symmetry in the hidden order phase of URuSi

Abstract

Electrical resistivity measurements were performed as functions of temperature, magnetic field, and angle between the magnetic field and the c-axis of a URuSi single crystal. The resistivity exhibits a two-fold oscillation as a function of at high temperatures, which undergoes a 180-phase shift (sign change) with decreasing temperature at around 35 K. The hidden order transition is manifested as a minimum in the magnetoresistance and amplitude of the two-fold oscillation. Interestingly, the resistivity also showed four-fold, six-fold, and eight-fold symmetries at the hidden order transition. These higher order symmetries were also detected at low temperatures, which could be a sign of the formation of another pseudogap phase above the superconducting transition, consistent with recent evidence for a pseudogap from point-contact spectroscopy measurements and NMR. Measurements of the magnetisation of single crystalline URuSi with the magnetic field applied parallel and perpendicular to the crystallographic c-axis revealed regions with linear temperature dependencies between the hidden order transition temperature and about 25 K. This T-linear behaviour of the magnetisation may be associated with the formation of a precursor phase or ‘pseudogap’ in the density of states in the vicinity of 30–35 K.

Keywords:

• Hidden order
• rotational symmetry
• heavy-fermion metals

Acknowledgements

The authors thank P. Coleman, P. Chandra and T. Yanagisawa for helpful comments and discussions.

Notes

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Research at UCSD was supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES), Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering, [grant number DE-FG02-04-ER46105] (sample synthesis and physical properties measurements) and the National Science Foundation [grant number DMR 1206553] (low temperature measurements), while the research at TU was funded by US DOE BES [grant number DE-FG02-84-ER45872]. A. V. Balatsky was supported by US DOE BES E304, ERC DM and KAW. Work at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) was performed under the auspices of the US DOE, OBES, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering.