Probing three-state Potts nematic fluctuations by ultrasound attenuation

Abstract

Motivated by recent studies of three-state Potts nematic states in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene and doped-${\mathrm{Bi}}_{2}{\mathrm{Se}}_{3}$, we analyze the impact of critical nematic fluctuations on the low-energy properties of phonons. In this study, we propose how to identify the three-state Potts nematic fluctuations by ultrasound attenuation. The Gaussian fluctuation analysis shows that the Landau damping term becomes isotropic due to fluctuations of the ${C}_{3}$-breaking bond-order, and the nematoelastic coupling is also shown to be isotropic. These two features lead to an isotropic divergence of the transverse sound attenuation coefficient and an isotropic lattice softening, in contrast to the case of the ${C}_{4}$-breaking bond-order, which shows strong anisotropy. Moreover, we use a mean-field approximation and discuss the impurity effects. The transition temperature takes its maximum near the filling of the van Hove singularity, and the large density of states favors the nematic phase transition. It turns out that the phase transition is of weak first-order in the wide range of filling and, upon increasing the impurity scattering, the first-order transition line at low temperatures gradually shifts towards the second-order line, rendering the transition a weak first-order in a wider range of parameters. Furthermore, it is confirmed that the enhancement of the ultrasound attenuation coefficient will be clearly observed in experiments in the case of a weak first-order phase transition.