Pair-Density-Wave Superconductivity: A Microscopic Model on the 2D Honeycomb Lattice

Pair-density wave (PDW) is a long-sought exotic state with oscillating superconducting order without external magnetic field. So far it has been rare in establishing a 2D microscopic model with PDW long-range order in its ground state. Here, we propose to study PDW superconductivity in a minimal model of spinless fermions (or spin-polarized electrons) on the honeycomb lattice with nearest-neighbor and next-nearest-neighbor interaction V_{1} and V_{2}, respectively. By performing a state-of-the-art density-matrix renormalization group study of this t-V_{1}-V_{2} model at finite doping on six-leg and eight-leg honeycomb cylinders, we show that the ground state exhibits PDW ordering (namely quasi-long-range order with a divergent PDW susceptibility). Remarkably this PDW state persists on the wider cylinder with 2D-like Fermi surfaces. To the best of our knowledge, this is probably the first controlled numerical evidence of PDW in systems with 2D-like Fermi surfaces.