Superconductivity from emergent dipolar interactions in a fractionalized Fermi liquid

Abstract

Starting from the spin-fermion model or Hertz-Millis theory describing electrons coupled to anti-ferromagnetic spin fluctuations we develop a theory to describe the transition from a fractionalized Fermi liquid into a $d_{x^2-y^2}$ superconductor. We focus on small electron doping on top of the half-filled state. The doped electrons enter the system as spinon-chargon bound states, which form a small, reconstructed Fermi surface. The bound states are neutral under the emergent U(1) gauge symmetry of the fractionalized Fermi liquid, but interact via a dipolar two-body potential. We show that because of the projective action of translation symmetry on the spinons and chargons, the Fourier components of this repulsive dipolar interaction are peaked at the anti-ferromagnetic wave vector, thereby providing a robust microscopic mechanism for $d_{x^2-y^2}$ pairing in a fractionalized metal.