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At least 937 records · Page 52

Quantitative remote sensing of ammonium minerals, Cedar Mountains, Esmeralda County, Nevada

Mineral-bound ammonium (NH4+) was discovered by the U.S. Geological Survey in the southern Cedar Mountains of Esmeralda County, Nevada in 1989. At 10 km in length, this site is 100 times larger than any previously known occurrence in volcanic rocks. The ammonium occurs in two hydrothermally altered, crystal-rich rhyolitic tuff units of Oligocene age, and is both structurally and stratigraphically controlled. This research uses Advanced Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) data to quantitatively map the mineral-bound ammonium (buddingtonite) concentration in the altered volcanic rocks. Naturally occurring mineral-bound ammonium is fairly rare; however, it has been found to occur in gold-bearing hydrothermal deposits. Because of this association, it is thought that ammonium may be a useful too in exploration for gold and other metal deposits. Mineral-bound ammonium is produced when an ammonium ion (NH4+) replaces the alkali cation site (usually K+) in the crystal structure of silicate minerals such as feldspars, micas and clays. Buddingtonite is an ammonium feldspar. The ammonium originates in buried organic plant matter and is transported to the host rock by hydrothermal fluids. Ammonium alteration does not produce visible changes in the rock, and it is barely detectable with standard x-ray diffraction methods. It is clearly identified, however, by absorption features in short wave-infrared (SWIR) wavelengths (2.0 - 2.5 micrometers). The ammonium absorption features are believed to be caused by N-H vibrational modes and are analogous to hydroxyl (O-H) vibrational modes, only shifted slightly in wavelength. Buddingtonite absorption features in the near- and SWIR lie at 1.56, 2.02 and 2.12 micrometers. The feature at 2.12 micrometer is the strongest of the three and is the only one used in this study. The southern Cedar Mountains are sparsely vegetated and are an ideal site for a remote sensing study.

Baugh, William M.↗

Modelling of Trapped Radiation Near Jupiter

Energetic (62 to approx. 130 MeV) proton fluxes measured with the Galileo Probe inside Jupiter's main ring (radii 122,500 to 128,940 km) show a modest increase as Jupiter is approached. Solutions of a reduced (1-d) equatorial diffusion equation with-constant losses described by a lifetime tau match those data for tau greater than or equal to 10(exp 9) s for diffusion coefficient D(sub LL) = 10(exp -9) L(exp 4)/s, 10(exp -9) L(exp -3)/s, or 10(exp -10) L(exp 4)/s (this particle population may be undergoing nearly loss-free inward radial diffusion). Tau would increase as Jupiter is approached if its value were determined by pitch angle scattering due to EM wave-particle interactions. if the absolute amplitudes of the waves' magnetic fluctuations did not vary with radial distance. Exploration of numerical solutions of the diffusive transport equation for Jupiter's magnetospheric ions at die planetary ring and closer to Jupiter has been done. Explicit range-energy relationships for energy loss in ring matter (SiO2), modeled as a continuous disk, are incorporated. A spatial resolution of approx. 1000 km in the radial direction is used in the vicinity of the main ring; off-equatorial ion fluxes have been included (assuming the atmosphere is a perfect absorber). For protons the maximum effect of energy loss in the microscopic size range of ring particles is expected at energies approx. 0.1 Mev. Presumably there could be sufficiently large, unobserved bodies within the ring that would have to be modeled as discrete objects, as planetary satellites would be. Within limitations of the model and computational resources it's planned to characterize solutions for transport of magnetospheric ions past the planetary ring; the procedures that are used are fairly well known and may be applied generally to the simpler magnetospheric models.

Mihalov, John D.↗

Relationship between circum-Arctic atmospheric wave patterns and large-scale wildfires in boreal summer

Long-term assessment of severe wildfires and associated air pollution and related climate patterns in and around the Arctic is essential for assessing healthy human life status. To examine the relationships, we analyzed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) modern-era retrospective analysis for research and applications, version 2 (MERRA-2). Our investigation based on this state-of-the-art atmospheric reanalysis data reveals that 13 out of the 20 months with the highest PM2.5 (corresponding to the highly elevated organic carbon in the particulate organic matter [POM] form) monthly mean mass concentration over the Arctic for 2003–2017 were all in summer (July and August), during which POM of ⩾0.5 μg/cu. m and PM2.5 were positively correlated. This correlation suggests that high PM2.5 in the Arctic is linked to large wildfire contributions and characterized by significant anticyclonic anomalies (i.e. clockwise atmospheric circulation) with anomalous surface warmth and drier conditions over Siberia and subpolar North America, in addition to Europe. A similar climate pattern was also identified through an independent regression analysis for the July and August mean data between the same atmospheric variables and the sign-reversed Scandinavian pattern index. We named this pattern of recent atmospheric circulation anomalies the circum-Arctic wave (CAW) pattern as a manifestation of eastward group-velocity propagation of stationary Rossby waves (i.e. large-scale atmospheric waves). The CAW induces concomitant development of warm anticyclonic anomalies over Europe, Siberia, Alaska, and Canada, as observed in late June 2019. Surprisingly, the extended regression analysis of the 1980–2017 period revealed that the CAW pattern was not prominent before 2003. Understanding the CAW pattern under future climate change and global warming would lead to better prediction of co-occurrences of European heatwaves and large-scale wildfires with air pollution over Siberia, Alaska, and Canada in and around the Arctic in summer.

wildfire↗

Catastrogenesis: DM, GWs, and PBHs from ALP string-wall networks

Axion-like particles (ALPs), a compelling candidate for dark matter (DM), are the pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons of a spontaneously and explicitly broken global U(1) symmetry. When the symmetry breaking happens after inflation, the ALP cosmology predicts the formation of a string-wall network which must annihilate early enough, producing gravitational waves (GWs) and primordial black holes (PBHs), as well as non-relativistic ALPs. We call this processcatastrogenesis. We show that, under the generic assumption that the potential has several degenerate minima, GWs from string-wall annihilation at temperatures below 100 eV could be detected by future CMB and astrometry probes, for ALPs with mass from 10 -16 to 10 6 eV. In this case, structure formation could limit ALPs to constitute a fraction of the DM and the annihilation would produce mostly "stupendously large" PBHs. For larger annihilation temperatures, ALPs can constitute 100% of DM, and the annihilation could produce supermassive black holes with a mass of up to 10 9 M ⊙ as found at the center of large galaxies. Furthermore our model can solve two mysteries, the nature of the DM and the origin of these black holes.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Simulations for x-ray imaging of wave-packet dynamics

Previous work on imaging wave-packet dynamics with x-ray scattering revealed that the scattering patterns deviate substantially from the notion of instantaneous momentum density of the wave packet. Here we show that scattering patterns can provide clear insights into the electron wave-packet dynamics if the final state of the scattered electron and the scattered photon momentum are determined simultaneously. The scattering probability is shown to be proportional to the modulus square of the Fourier transform of the instantaneous electronic spatial wave function weighted by the final state of the electron. Several cases for the choice of final state of the electron are explored. First, the case where the final state can be measured up to a given principal quantum number n and orbital angular momentum l are presented. Next, the case where the final states can only be determined up to a given energy is discussed. Lastly, the case of an initial wave packet consisting of a large amount of a known stationary state and a small amount of an unknown stationary state is examined. The scattering profile is used to determine the properties of the unknown state in the wave packet.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

Leakage Reduces Device Coherence Demands for Pulse-Level Molecular Simulations

Quantum simulation on noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices is severely limited by short qubit coherence times. A variational pulse-shaping algorithm known as ctrl-VQE was recently proposed to address this issue by eliminating the need for parameterized quantum circuits, which lead to long state preparation times. Here, in this study, we find the fastest possible pulses that prepare target molecular wave functions for a given device Hamiltonian describing coupled transmon qubits using simulations. We find that the resulting time-optimal pulses develop a bang-bang form consistent with Pontryagin’s maximum principle. We further investigate how the minimal state preparation time is impacted by the number of energy levels active in the transmon simulations. We find that leakage outside the computational subspace (something that is usually considered problematic) speeds up the state preparation, further reducing device coherence-time demands. Our analysis reveals that this speedup is due to both an enlarged solution space of target wave functions and the appearance of additional channels connecting initial and target states.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Magnetic breakdown and charge density wave formation: A quantum oscillation study of the rare-earth tritellurides

The rare-earth tritellurides (RTe 3 , where R = La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Y) form a charge density wave state consisting of a single unidirectional charge density wave for lighter R, with a second unidirectional charge density wave, perpendicular and in addition to the first, also present at low temperatures for heavier R. In this paper, we present a quantum oscillation study in magnetic fields up to 65T that compares the single charge density wave state with the double charge density wave state both above and below the magnetic breakdown field of the second charge density wave. In the double charge density wave state it is observed that there remain several small, light pockets with the largest occupying around 0.5% of the Brillouin zone. By applying magnetic fields above the independently determined magnetic breakdown field, the quantum oscillation frequencies of the single charge density wave state are recovered, as expected in a magnetic breakdown scenario. Measurements of the electronic effective mass do not show any divergence or significant increase on the pockets of Fermi surface observed here as the putative quantum phase transition between the single and double charge density wave states is approached.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Single-ion properties of the transverse-field Ising model material CoNb 2 O 6

We report CoNb 2 O 6 is one of the few materials that is known to approximate the one-dimensional transverse-field Ising model (1D-TFIM) near its quantum critical point. It has been inferred that Co 2+ acts as a pseudospin 1/2 with anisotropic exchange interactions that are largely Ising-like, enabling the realization of the TFIM. However, the behavior of CoNb 2 O 6 is known to diverge from the ideal TFIM under transverse magnetic fields that are far from the quantum critical point, requiring the consideration of additional anisotropic, bond-dependent (Kitaev-like) terms in the microscopic pseudospin-1/2 Hamiltonian. These terms are expected to be controlled in part by single-ion physics, namely the wave function for the pseudospin-1/2 angular momentum doublet. Here, we present the results of both inelastic neutron scattering measurements and electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy on CoNb 2 O 6 , which elucidate the single-ion physics of Co 2+ in CoNb 2 O 6 for the first time. We find that the system is well-described by an intermediate spin-orbit coupled Hamiltonian, and the ground state is a well-isolated Kramers doublet with an anisotropic g tensor. We provide the approximate wave functions for this doublet, which we expect will be useful in theoretical investigations of the anisotropic exchange interactions.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

A General Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamics Simulation of Jet Formation with a State Transition

We have performed the first fully three-dimensional general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulation of jet formation from a thin accretion disk around a Schwarzschild black hole with a free-falling corona. The initial simulation results show that a bipolar jet (velocity sim 0.3c) is created as shown by previous two-dimensional axisymmetric simulations with mirror symmetry at the equator. The 3-D simulation ran over one hundred light-crossing time units which is considerably longer than the previous simulations. We show that the jet is initially formed as predicted due in part to magnetic pressure from the twisting the initially uniform magnetic field and from gas pressure associated with shock formation. At later times, the accretion disk becomes thick and the jet fades resulting in a wind that is ejected from the surface of the thickened (torus-like) disk. It should be noted that no streaming matter from a donor is included at the outer boundary in the simulation (an isolated black hole not binary black hole). The wind flows outwards with a wider angle than the initial jet. The widening of the jet is consistent with the outward moving shock wave. This evolution of jet-disk coupling suggests that the low/hard state of the jet system may switch to the high/soft state with a wind, as the accretion rate diminishes.

Nishikawa, K. I.↗

Self-consistently renormalized spin-wave theory of layered ferromagnets on the honeycomb lattice

We develop a self-consistently renormalized spin-wave theory, within a mean-field approximation, for the two-dimensional Heisenberg ferromagnet with perpendicular easy-axis anisotropy on the honeycomb lattice, as well as its few-layer and bulk extensions. In this method, the magnetization dependence on temperature is found as the solution of the self-consistency equation. Furthermore, we account for the physical difference of surface and bulk layers by treating the layers as separate sublattices. Thus the method can be readily generalized to study various magnetic phenomena in a broad range of systems, including those comprising magnetically inequivalent sublattices. Using our theory, we calculate the temperature-dependent magnetization for two chromium-based layered van der Waals insulating magnets, Cr 2 Ge 2 Te 6 and CrI 3 , employing various sets of Heisenberg exchange and single-ion anisotropy values reported for these materials in the existing literature. As expected, we observe a strong dimensionality effect where the ordering temperature is reduced and its sensitivity on the anisotropy is enhanced with the decrease of dimensionality.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Impacts of Jets and winds from primordial black holes

ABSTRACT Primordial black holes (PBHs) formed in the early Universe constitute an attractive candidate for dark matter. Within the gaseous environment of the interstellar medium, PBHs with accretion discs naturally launch outflows such as winds and jets. We discuss for the first time how PBHs with significant spin can sustain powerful relativistic jets and generate associated cocoons. Jets and winds can efficiently deposit their kinetic energies and heat the surrounding gas through shocks. Focusing on the Leo T dwarf galaxy, we demonstrate that these effects form novel tests and set new limits on PBHs over a significant ∼10−2 –106 M⊙ mass range, including the parameter space associated with gravitational wave observations by the LIGO and VIRGO Collaborations. Observing the morphology of emission will allow to distinguish between jet and wind contributions, and hence establishes a new method for identifying spinning PBHs.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

New Dimensions in the Theory of Excited States and X-ray Spectra (Final Report)

This Final Technical Report briefly summarizes the achievements during the lifetime of our DOE BES grant DE-FG02-97ER45623. The long-term goal of this project has been the development of quantitative theories of the interaction between radiation and matter, with a focus on x-ray spectroscopies. X-ray spectra have long been among the most important probes of atomic-scale structure and properties of matter, ranging from atoms and molecular systems to condensed matter and exotic states. These spectroscopies are widely used in investigations at the major DOE synchrotron x-ray facilities and related centers world-wide. In addition to fundamental theory, a major goal of our project has been the development of computational software that implements the theory for calculations of x-ray spectra of various materials throughout the periodic table. Due to the complex nature of x-ray spectra, quantitative theory is essential for its interpretation. The theory is challenging since it involves excited state electronic structure and many-body correlation effects that go beyond independent particle approximations like DFT or Hartree-Fock. Moreover, the experimental investigations typically involve a broad range of energy, time, and temperature scales, from the UV-Vis to hard x-ray energies of order 10 4 eV, and temperatures T from ambient up to the warm-dense-matter regime where the Fermi energy kBTF is of order a few eV, i.e., temperatures of order 105 Kelvin. This broad range of experimental conditions has fostered many novel theoretical approaches and computational techniques, many of which we have developed systematically over the duration of the grant. In contrast to the traditional wave-function approach of quantum theory and electronic structure methods, our theoretical approach is based on modern Green's function techniques. This approach is better suited for aperiodic structures, excited states, and broad spectral ranges, since it avoids the computational bottlenecks of sum-over-states approaches, as in the Fermi golden rule. This theoretical framework has been incorporated into efficient, user-friendly x-ray spectroscopy software which is now used routinely worldwide to simulate and analyze spectra. These theoretical tools provide an essential complement to synchrotron and next-generation light sources, which are used to investigate complex materials with ever increasing precision. Moreover, the synergism between theory, computation and experiment contributed by our research enhances scientific understanding and creates opportunities for innovations in materials and energy science and in many fields. As documented in this Report, this research grant has been remarkably successful in achieving these goals. In particular, this grant has supported the development of the x-ray spectroscopy software suite known as FEFF (named for an effective scattering amplitude f eff in the theory). The FEFF codes have become one of the premier tools for quantitative simulations of x-ray spectra as documented by many thousands of citations in the Web of Science and Google-Scholar.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Prediction of s ± -Wave Superconductivity Enhanced by Electronic Doping in Trilayer Nickelates La 4 Ni 3 O 10 under Pressure

Motivated by the recently reported signatures of superconductivity in trilayer La 4 ⁢Ni 3 ⁢O 10 under pressure, here we comprehensively study this system using ab initio and random-phase approximation techniques. Without electronic interactions, the Ni d 3z 2 –r 2 orbitals show a bonding-antibonding and nonbonding splitting behavior via the O p z orbitals inducing a “trimer” lattice in La 4⁢ Ni 3 ⁢O 10 , analogous to the dimers of La 3 ⁢Ni 2 ⁢O 7 . The Fermi surface consists of three electron sheets with mixed e g orbitals, and a hole and an electron pocket made up of the d 3⁢z 2 –r 2 orbital, suggesting a Ni two-orbital minimum model. In addition, we find that superconducting pairing is induced in the s ± -wave channel due to partial nesting between the M = (π,π) centered pockets and portions of the Fermi surface centered at the Γ = (0,0) point. With changing electronic density n, the s ± instability remains leading and its pairing strength shows a domelike behavior with a maximum around n = 4.2 ( ~6.7% electron doping). The superconducting instability disappears at the same electronic density as that in the new 1313 stacking La 3 ⁢Ni 2 ⁢O 7 , correlated with the vanishing of the hole pocket that arises from the trilayer sublattice, suggesting that the high-T c superconductivity of La 3⁢ Ni 2 ⁢O 7 does not originate from a trilayer and monolayer structure. Furthermore, we confirm the experimentally proposed spin state in La 4 ⁢Ni 3 ⁢O 10 with an in-plane (π, π) order and antiferromagnetic coupling between the top and bottom Ni layers, and spin zero in the middle layer.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Correlated signals of first-order phase transitions and primordial black hole evaporation

Fermi balls produced in a cosmological first-order phase transition may collapse to primordial black holes (PBHs) if the fermion dark matter particles that comprise them interact via a sufficiently strong Yukawa force. We show that phase transitions described by a quartic thermal effective potential with vacuum energy, 0.1 ≲ B 1/4 /MeV ≲ 10 3 , generate PBHs of mass, 10 –20 ≲ M PBH /M ⊙ ≲ 10 –16 , and gravitational waves from the phase transition (at THEIA/μAres) can be correlated with an isotropic extragalactic X-ray/γ-ray background from PBH evaporation (at AMEGO-X/e-ASTROGAM).

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Downfolding from ab initio to interacting model Hamiltonians: comprehensive analysis and benchmarking of the DFT+cRPA approach

Abstract Model Hamiltonians are regularly derived from first principles to describe correlated matter. However, the standard methods for this contain a number of largely unexplored approximations. For a strongly correlated impurity model system, here we carefully compare a standard downfolding technique with the best possible ground-truth estimates for charge-neutral excited-state energies and wave functions using state-of-the-art first-principles many-body wave function approaches. To this end, we use the vanadocene molecule and analyze all downfolding aspects, including the Hamiltonian form, target basis, double-counting correction, and Coulomb interaction screening models. We find that the choice of target-space basis functions emerges as a key factor for the quality of the downfolded results, while orbital-dependent double-counting corrections diminish the quality. Background screening of the Coulomb interaction matrix elements primarily affects crystal-field excitations. Our benchmark uncovers the relative importance of each downfolding step and offers insights into the potential accuracy of minimal downfolded model Hamiltonians.

Chemistry↗

Gauge invariants of linearized gravity with a general background metric

In linearized gravity with distributed matter, the background metric has no generic symmetries, and decomposition of the metric perturbation into global normal modes is generally impractical. This complicates the identification of the gauge-invariant part of the perturbation, which is a concern, for example, in the theory of dispersive gravitational waves (GWs) whose energy–momentum must be gauge-invariant. Here, we propose how to identify the gauge-invariant part of the metric perturbation and the six independent gauge invariants per se for an arbitrary background metric. For the Minkowski background, the operator that projects the metric perturbation on the invariant subspace is proportional to the well-known dispersion operator of linear GWs in vacuum. For a general background, this operator is expressed in terms of the Green’s operator of the vacuum wave equation. Further, if the background is smooth, it can be found asymptotically using the inverse scale of the background metric as a small parameter.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

The 2022 magneto-optics roadmap

Abstract Magneto-optical (MO) effects, viz. magnetically induced changes in light intensity or polarization upon reflection from or transmission through a magnetic sample, were discovered over a century and a half ago. Initially they played a crucially relevant role in unveiling the fundamentals of electromagnetism and quantum mechanics. A more broad-based relevance and wide-spread use of MO methods, however, remained quite limited until the 1960s due to a lack of suitable, reliable and easy-to-operate light sources. The advent of Laser technology and the availability of other novel light sources led to an enormous expansion of MO measurement techniques and applications that continues to this day (see section 1). The here-assembled roadmap article is intended to provide a meaningful survey over many of the most relevant recent developments, advances, and emerging research directions in a rather condensed form, so that readers can easily access a significant overview about this very dynamic research field. While light source technology and other experimental developments were crucial in the establishment of today’s magneto-optics, progress also relies on an ever-increasing theoretical understanding of MO effects from a quantum mechanical perspective (see section 2), as well as using electromagnetic theory and modelling approaches (see section 3) to enable quantitatively reliable predictions for ever more complex materials, metamaterials, and device geometries. The latest advances in established MO methodologies and especially the utilization of the MO Kerr effect (MOKE) are presented in sections 4 (MOKE spectroscopy), 5 (higher order MOKE effects), 6 (MOKE microscopy), 8 (high sensitivity MOKE), 9 (generalized MO ellipsometry), and 20 (Cotton–Mouton effect in two-dimensional materials). In addition, MO effects are now being investigated and utilized in spectral ranges, to which they originally seemed completely foreign, as those of synchrotron radiation x-rays (see section 14 on three-dimensional magnetic characterization and section 16 on light beams carrying orbital angular momentum) and, very recently, the terahertz (THz) regime (see section 18 on THz MOKE and section 19 on THz ellipsometry for electron paramagnetic resonance detection). Magneto-optics also demonstrates its strength in a unique way when combined with femtosecond laser pulses (see section 10 on ultrafast MOKE and section 15 on magneto-optics using x-ray free electron lasers), facilitating the very active field of time-resolved MO spectroscopy that enables investigations of phenomena like spin relaxation of non-equilibrium photoexcited carriers, transient modifications of ferromagnetic order, and photo-induced dynamic phase transitions, to name a few. Recent progress in nanoscience and nanotechnology, which is intimately linked to the achieved impressive ability to reliably fabricate materials and functional structures at the nanoscale, now enables the exploitation of strongly enhanced MO effects induced by light–matter interaction at the nanoscale (see section 12 on magnetoplasmonics and section 13 on MO metasurfaces). MO effects are also at the very heart of powerful magnetic characterization techniques like Brillouin light scattering and time-resolved pump-probe measurements for the study of spin waves (see section 7), their interactions with acoustic waves (see section 11), and ultra-sensitive magnetic field sensing applications based on nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond (see section 17). Despite our best attempt to represent the field of magneto-optics accurately and do justice to all its novel developments and its diversity, the research area is so extensive and active that there remains great latitude in deciding what to include in an article of this sort, which in turn means that some areas might not be adequately represented here. However, we feel that the 20 sections that form this 2022 magneto-optics roadmap article, each written by experts in the field and addressing a specific subject on only two pages, provide an accurate snapshot of where this research field stands today. Correspondingly, it should act as a valuable reference point and guideline for emerging research directions in modern magneto-optics, as well as illustrate the directions this research field might take in the foreseeable future.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Spin and orbital metallic magnetism in rhombohedral trilayer graphene

We provide a theoretical interpretation of the metallic broken spin-valley (flavor) symmetry states recently discovered in hole-doped rhombohedral trilayer (ABC) graphene in large electric displacement fields. Our conclusions about the phase diagram and phase transitions combine insights from ABC graphene electronic structure models and mean-field theory, and are guided by the precise magneto-oscillation Fermi-surface-area measurements of recent experiments. We find that the principle of momentum-space condensation plays a key role in determining Fermi-surface reconstructions enabled by broken flavor symmetries when the single-particle bands imply thin annular Fermi seas. The reconstructed Fermi sea consists of one large outer Fermi-surface-enclosed majority-flavor states in reciprocal-space area A maj and one or more small inner holelike Fermi-surface-enclosed minority-flavor states in A min that are primarily responsible for nematic order. The competing ground states (valley-Ising, valley-XY, and spin-polarized state) have different A maj /A min and exchange energy maximizes this ratio and selects valley-XY nematic metal as the lowest-energy state. Here, we discuss how the nematic pockets explain the observed fractionalization of quantum oscillation frequencies, and propose anisotropic transport and the nonlinear Hall effect as additional observables.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗