Vestigial chirality from fluctuating loop currents on the kagome lattice

arXiv:2609.19618 · cond-mat.str-el · Submitted 2026-09-17 · Read on arXiv

cond-mat.str-el

Submitted: 2026-09-17

Updated: 2026-10-09

Comments: 11 pages, 5 figures plus Supplemental Material. v2: Cited more references; specified AI usage and output verification in more detail; updated code-availability information. Main results and conclusions unchanged

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The gist: Multicomponent order can melt in stages, leaving a composite order after its primary constituents become short ranged.

Terminology

Abstract

Multicomponent order can melt in stages, leaving a composite order after its primary constituents become short ranged. We study this possibility for commensurate three- Q loop-current order on the kagome lattice. Large-scale cluster and parallel-tempering Monte Carlo simulations reveal direct and two-stage melting regimes in an effective fixed-amplitude sign model. In the latter regime, translation-sector domain walls proliferate before chirality-changing walls, restoring lattice translational symmetry while preserving long-range time-reversal-odd order. The primary M-point correlations are short ranged in this intermediate phase. The two-stage regime begins when the lowest-energy chirality-changing wall is only about 12 -- 13% more costly than a same-chirality translation wall. Finite-size scaling of a stable amplitude-resolved Ginzburg--Landau theory shows that the phase survives amplitude relaxation. Our results establish a quantitative domain-wall criterion for vestigial loop-current order and a fluctuation route to time-reversal symmetry breaking without long-range loop-current Bragg order. This separation provides a possible thermodynamic framework for time-reversal-odd responses recently reported above the critical temperature for conventional charge-density-wave ordering in kagome metals.

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