Superconductivity in kagome metals due to soft loop-current fluctuations

Abstract

Abstract We demonstrate that soft fluctuations of translation symmetry-breaking loop currents provide a mechanism for unconventional superconductivity in kagome metals that naturally addresses the multiple superconducting phases observed under pressure. Focusing on the rich multi-orbital character of these systems, we show that loop currents involving both vanadium and antimony orbitals generate low-energy collective modes that couple efficiently to electrons near the Fermi surface and mediate attractive interactions in two distinct unconventional pairing channels. While loop-current fluctuations confined to vanadium orbitals favor chiral d  +  i d superconductivity, which spontaneously breaks time-reversal symmetry, the inclusion of antimony orbitals stabilizes an s ± state that is robust against disorder. We argue that these two states are realized experimentally as pressure increases and the antimony-dominated Fermi surface sheet undergoes a Lifshitz transition.