Pauling’s dreams for graphene

Chiral d-wave superconductivity in doped graphene

A highly unconventional superconducting state with a spin-singlet dx2-y2+/-idxy-wave, or chiral d-wave symmetry has recently been suggested to emerge from electron-electron interactions in doped graphene. It has been argued that graphene doped to the van Hove singularity at 1/4 doping, where the density of states diverge, is particularly likely to be a chiral d-wave superconductor. In this review we summarize the currently mounting theoretical evidence for the existence of a chiral d-wave superconducting state in graphene, obtained with methods ranging from mean-field studies of effective Hamiltonians to angle-resolved renormalization group calculations. We further discuss the multiple distinctive properties of the chiral d-wave superconducting state in graphene, as well as its stability in the presence of disorder. We also review the means of enhancing the chiral d-wave state using proximity-induced superconductivity. The appearance of chiral d-wave superconductivity is intimately linked to the hexagonal crystal lattice and we also offer a brief overview of other materials which have also been proposed to be chiral d-wave superconductors.

Dynamic gap generation in graphene under the long-range Coulomb interaction

Dynamic gap generation in graphene under the long-range Coulomb interaction is studied by the Dyson-Schwinger gap equation beyond the instantaneous approximation. Once the dependence of the dynamic gap on the energy has been considered, the critical interaction strength α(c) decreases to 0.542. If the renormalization of the fermion velocity is considered, α(c) will become α(c) = 1.02. This indicates that the dependence on the energy and the renormalization of the fermion velocity are both important for dynamic gap generation in graphene under long-range Coulomb interaction.

Fate of the resonating valence bond in graphene

We apply a variational wave function capable of describing qualitatively and quantitatively the so-called "resonating valence bond" (RVB) in realistic materials, by improving standard ab initio calculations by means of quantum Monte Carlo methods. In this framework we clearly identify the Kekulé and Dewar contributions to the chemical bond of the benzene molecule and establish the corresponding RVB energy of these structures (≃0.01 eV/atom). We apply this method to unveil the nature of the chemical bond in undoped graphene, providing an estimate of the RVB energy gain, and show that this picture remains only within a small "resonance length" of a few atomic units.

Eliashberg theory of excitonic insulating transition in graphene

A sufficiently strong Coulomb interaction may open an excitonic fermion gap and thus drive a semi-metal-insulator transition in graphene. In this paper, we study the Eliashberg theory of excitonic transition by coupling the fermion gap equation self-consistently to the equation of the vacuum polarization function. Including the fermion gap into the polarization function increases the effective strength of the Coulomb interaction because it reduces the screening effects due to the collective particle-hole excitations. Although this procedure does not change the critical point, it leads to a significant enhancement of the dynamical fermion gap in the excitonic insulating phase. The validity of the Eliashberg theory is justified by showing that the vertex corrections are suppressed at the large N limit.