Type-II heavy Fermi liquids and the magnetic memory of 4Hb-TaS2

Abstract

The interplay of quantum spin liquids with itinerant conduction electrons is of crucial interest for understanding layered structures composed of frustrated magnet and metal monolayers. Using parton-mean-field theory, we demonstrate here that a type-II heavy Fermi liquid, which is characterized by a vortex lattice in the slave boson condensate, can occur in the vicinity of the quantum phase transition separating fractionalized and heavy Fermi liquid phases. The magnetic flux threading each such vortex is about vf/137c times smaller than the magnetic flux threading vortices in type-II superconductors, where vf is the speed of magnetic excitations and c the speed of light. This makes a magnetic observation of this effect challenging. We propose scanning tunneling spectroscopy instead and investigate its signatures. If a type-II heavy Fermi liquid is cooled into a type-II superconductor, vortices in the slave boson condensate and in the superconducting condensate mutually attract. We argue that the type-II heavy Fermi liquid thereby provides a compelling explanation for the magnetic memory observed recently [Persky, Nature (London) 607, 692 (2022)0028-083610.1038/s41586-022-04855-2] in thermal cycles of 4Hb-TaS2.