Spin and pair density wave glasses

Spontaneous breaking of translational symmetry—known as ‘density wave’ order—is common in nature. However such states are strongly sensitive to impurities or other forms of frozen disorder leading to fascinating glassy phenomena. We analyze impurity effects on a particularly ubiquitous form of broken translation symmetry in solids: a Spin Density Wave (SDW) with spatially modulated magnetic order. Related phenomena occur in Pair Density Wave (PDW) superconductors where the superconducting order is spatially modulated. For weak disorder, we find that the SDW / PDW order can generically give way to a SDW / PDW glass—new phases of matter with a number of striking properties, which we introduce and characterize here. In particular, they exhibit an interesting combination of conventional (symmetry-breaking) and spin glass (Edwards-Anderson) order. This is reflected in the dynamic response of such a system, which—as expected for a glass— is extremely slow in certain variables, but—surprisingly—is fast in others. Our results apply to all uniaxial metallic SDW systems where the ordering vector is incommensurate with the crystalline lattice. In addition, the possibility of a PDW glass has important consequences for some recent theoretical and experimental work on La2−xBaxCu2O4.