Violation of emergent rotational symmetry in the hexagonal Kagome superconductor CsV₃Sb₅.

Abstract

Superconductivity is caused by electron pairs that are canonically isotropic, whereas some exotic superconductors are known to exhibit non-trivial anisotropy stemming from unconventional pairings. However, superconductors with hexagonal symmetry, the highest rotational symmetry allowed in crystals, exceptionally have strong constraint that is called emergent rotational symmetry (ERS): anisotropic properties should be very weak especially near the critical temperature T_c even for unconventional pairings such as d-wave states. Here, we investigate superconducting anisotropy of the recently-found hexagonal Kagome superconductor CsV₃Sb₅, which is known to exhibit various intriguing phenomena originating from its undistorted Kagome lattice formed by vanadium atoms. Based on calorimetry performed under accurate two-axis field-direction control, we discover a combination of six- and two-fold anisotropies in the in-plane upper critical field. Both anisotropies, robust up to very close to T_c, are beyond predictions of standard theories. We infer that this clear ERS violation with nematicity is best explained by multi-component nematic superconducting order parameter in CsV₃Sb₅ intertwined with symmetry breakings caused by the underlying charge-density-wave order.