Absence of bulk charge density wave order in the normal state of UTe<sub>2</sub>.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 39521771.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-024-53739-8 and PMC identifier 11550464.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
A spatially modulated superconducting state, known as pair density wave (PDW), is a tantalizing state of matter with unique properties. Recent scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) studies revealed that spin-triplet superconductor UTe<sub>2</sub> hosts an unprecedented spin-triplet, multi-component PDW whose three wavevectors are indistinguishable from a preceding charge-density wave (CDW) order that survives to temperatures well above the superconducting critical temperature, T<sub>c</sub>. Whether the PDW is the mother or a subordinate order remains unsettled. Here, based on a systematic search for bulk charge order above T<sub>c</sub> using resonant elastic X-ray scattering (REXS), we show that the structure factor of charge order previously identified by STM is absent in the bulk within the sensitivity of REXS. Our results invite two scenarios: either the density-wave orders condense simultaneously at T<sub>c</sub> in the bulk, in which case PDW order is likely the mother phase, or the charge modulations are restricted to the surface.