Recent Advances in Unconventional Density Waves

Abstract

Unconventional density wave (UDW) has been speculated as a possible electronic ground state in excitonic insulator in 1968. Recent surge of interest in UDW is partly due to the proposal that the pseudogap phase in high T_c cuprate superconductors is d-wave density wave (d-DW). Here we review our recent works on UDW within the framework of mean field theory. In particular we have shown that many properties of the low temperature phase (LTP) in alpha-(BEDT-TTF)_2MHg(SCN)_4 with M=K, Rb and Tl are well characterized in terms of unconventional charge density wave (UCDW). In this identification the Landau quantization of the quasiparticle motion in a magnetic field (the Nersesyan effect) plays the crucial role. Indeed the angular dependent magnetoresistance and the negative giant Nernst effect are two hallmarks of UDW.