Electrostatic effects, band distortions, and

superconductivity in twisted graphene bilayers

Francisco Guineaa,b,1,2 and Niels R. Waletb,1,2
a
Imdea Nanoscience, 28015 Madrid, Spain; and b School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom

Contributed by Francisco Guinea, November 2, 2018 (sent for review June 26, 2018; reviewed by Allan H. MacDonald and Eugene J. Mele)

Bilayer graphene twisted by a small angle shows a significant relaxation (34), since this is a complex problem and will be
charge modulation away from neutrality, as the charge in the discussed separately. We also do not address the role of the
narrow bands near the Dirac point is mostly localized in a frac- electron–phonon interaction on superconductivity; see refs. 35
tion of the Moiré unit cell. The resulting electrostatic potential and 36.
leads to a filling-dependent change in the low-energy bands,
of a magnitude comparable to or larger than the bandwidth. Estimates of the Electron–Electron Interactions
These modifications can be expressed in terms of new electron– We evaluate electron–electron interactions in the low-energy
electron interactions, which, when expressed in a local basis, bands of a twisted Moiré bilayer with twist angle θ to lead-
describe electron-assisted hopping terms. These interactions favor
ing powers in d /LM , where d ≈ 2.4 Å is the lattice unit of
superconductivity at certain fillings.
graphene, and LM = d /(2 sin(θ/2)) ≈ d /θ is the Moiré lattice
unit. The charge distribution of the states in the bands near
graphene | bilayer | superconductivity | twisted the neutrality point is mostly concentrated in regions with
AA stacking. This inhomogeneous charge leads to electrostatic
potentials of strength VCoulomb ∼ e 2 /(LM ). For an angle of the
T he discovery of strong repulsive interactions and supercon-
ductivity in twisted graphene bilayers (1–3) [see also previous
experimental results (4, 5) and recent work (6, 7)] has led
order θ ∼ 1◦ ,  ≈ 4, and a Moiré pattern of wavelength LM ∼
10 − 20 nm, we obtain a Coulomb potential in the order of
to an increased interest in the role of the electron–electron 50 meV.
interaction in these systems. Previously, extensive experimen- The overlapping π orbitals of the carbon atoms also gener-
tal studies had been carried out in graphene superlattices on ate an intraatomic Hubbard interaction, U ∼ e 2 /d , which pre-
a boron nitride (BN) substrate; for example, refs. 8–11. The vents double occupancy. This potential, when projected onto
mismatch in lattice spacing between graphene and BN limits wavefunctions of extensions similar to LM , generates an effec-
−2
the maximum wavelength of the Moiré lattice. As the lattice tive interaction Ueff ∼ (UNM ) NM , where NM ≈ (LM /d )2 is the
constant in the two graphene layers in a twisted bilayer is the number of atoms within the Moiré lattice unit, and the factor
−2
same, the periodicity of the Moiré structure diverges at small NM originates from the normalization of the wavefunctions.
twist angles (12–16). For sufficiently small angles, almost flat As a result, Ueff ∼ (e 2 d )/L2M ∼ 10−2 × VCoulomb ∼ 1 meV. Thus,
bands arise near the charge-neutrality point (14, 17). The effects the intraatomic Hubbard term is comparable to the electron
of the intrinsically small interaction effects in graphene are bandwidth W at the magic angles where W ∼ 2 − 10 meV, and
expected to be enhanced for those “magic” angles where the the long-range Coulomb interaction can be larger. In the fol-
width of the low-energy bands is smallest. Novel magnetic phases lowing, we only consider the effect of the long-range part of
become possible when the lowest band is half filled (18). Layer- the Coulomb interaction. A detailed analysis of the short-range
dependent strains can also lead to Moiré structures and narrow Hubbard repulsion can be found in ref. 18.
bands (19, 20).
In the following, we consider the effect of the long-range
Significance
Coulomb interaction on the bands nearest to the neutrality
point, as a function of their filling. The occupation of the
low-energy bands in a twisted bilayer graphene leads to inho- For small twist angles, bilayer graphene forms long-wave-
mogeneous electrostatic potentials of order e 2 /(LM ), where length Moiré patterns. For specific, so-called magic, angles of
LM is the length of the Moiré lattice unit, and  is the dielec- the order of 1 degree, very narrow bands have been seen that
tric constant of the environment. We expect this interaction to lead to superconductivity. The underlying mechanisms have
be comparable, or larger, than the bandwidth, and thus it will since been discussed in a variety of theoretical approaches.
give rise to a significant distortion of the bands. We analyze We show that the modulation of the charge density signif-
the screening of the Coulomb interaction within the Hartree– icantly modifies the electronic structure. These changes can
Fock approximation. As this is a variational method, it can be make an important contribution to superconductivity through
reliably used to treat screening effects, even when the inter- electron-assisted hopping.
action energy is comparable to the kinetic and crystal field
Author contributions: F.G. and N.R.W. designed research, performed research, and wrote
contributions. the paper.y
We find that the electrostatic potential due to the inhomo- Reviewers: A.H.M., The University of Texas at Austin; and E.J.M., University of
geneous charge distribution in the Moiré unit cell gives rise Pennsylvania.y
to significant distortions in the band. Using general proper- The authors declare no conflict of interest.y
ties of the Wannier functions which describe this band (21–23), This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
we identify local, filling-dependent couplings which change the NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).y
band dispersion away from the neutrality point. Finally, we 1
F.G. and N.R.W. contributed equally to this work.y
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discuss the relation between these interactions, which can be 2

To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: [email protected] or Niels.
defined as electron-assisted hopping terms, and superconduc- [email protected]
tivity. Our work presents a rather different angle and thus This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.
complements the extensive corpus of work on the role of local 1073/pnas.1810947115/-/DCSupplemental.y
interactions (24–33). We will not consider the role of lattice Published online December 11, 2018.

13174–13179 | PNAS | December 26, 2018 | vol. 115 | no. 52 www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810947115

 Band Structure and Charge Distribution mogeneous, and it is peaked in the AA regions, so that a change
For small twist angles, the wavelength of the Moiré superlattice is in the occupancy of these bands will lead to charge fluctuations
much larger than the graphene unit cell. It therefore makes sense with the periodicity of the Moiré unit cell, LM , as confirmed
to analyze the band structure by using the continuum approxima- by numerical calculations described below. Fluctuations of the
tion; refs. 12–14 and 16. We specifically use the parametrization charge density and electrostatic potential are dominated by the
of ref. 22 for a Moiré pattern with a twist angle θ ≈ 1.05◦ . Numer- √ of reciprocal lattice vectors, the six points with |G| =
first star
ical values are given in SI Appendix, section 2. The bands and the (4π)/( 3LM ).
charge density at high symmetry points in the Brillouin zone are If we consider partially filled conduction bands, their con-
shown in Fig. 1. As extensively discussed in the literature, the tribution to the charge density can be parameterized by a
charge density associated with states at the edges of the Brillouin dimensionless number, ρG , a complex quantity which encodes
zone, the K and M points, is concentrated in regions with AA the symmetric (real) and antisymmetric (imaginary) parts of the
stacking. On the other hand, at the center of the Brillouin zone, charge density. From the value of ρG , we can easily find the elec-
the Γ point, the charge density vanishes in these AA regions and trostatic potential in Fourier space, vG = V0 = vCoulomb (G)ρG ,
is much more homogeneously distributed throughout the rest of and vCoulomb (G) = (2πe 2 )/(|G|). The amplitude of the fluctua-
2
the Moiré cell. This asymmetry between charge densities in dif- tions of the potential in real
√ space are given by V = (2πe ρG )/
ferent regions of the Brillouin zone has been pointed out in ref. (Ω|G|), where Ω = L2M 3/2 is the area of the Moiré unit
37. As the bands in the two valleys are related by time-reversal cell. We finally obtain V = (e 2 ρG )/(LM ). In the following, we
symmetry, we will consider in most of the following analysis a neglect the dependence of ρG on sublattice and layer, as both
single valley, taking into account the fourfold spin and valley the density and the potential vary over length scales of order
degeneracy when necessary. LM . The value of ρG depends on the extent of the wavefunc-
tions in momentum space, and it is bounded by |ρG | < 4, as it
Hartree Potential is a cross-product of amplitudes times a spin-layer degeneracy
The Hamiltonian of twisted bilayer graphene breaks electron- factor 4,

APPLIED PHYSICAL
hole symmetry, and charge inhomogeneities exist, even at half

SCIENCES
filling. These fluctuations are expected to be small, as, for low XX ∗
twist angles, the Moiré pattern can be decomposed into regions ρG = ρ̄G + δρG = ρ̄G + 4 ak+G+G0 ak+G0 . [1]
with AA, AB and BA stacking, which are locally neutral. In the k G0
following, we neglect these charge inhomogeneities. The charge
distribution which arises away from the neutrality point in inho-
Here, ρ̄G is a constant which takes into account the contribution
to the total density from all of the bands not included in the cal-
culation. We fix its value by imposing a homogeneous state at
A charge neutrality, ρG (n0 ) = 0, where n0 is the density at half fill-
ing. The coefficient ak+G is the amplitude that the wavefunction
of band state k is represented by a Bloch state with momentum
k + G, and a sum over sublattice and layer indices is omitted. The
wavefunctions of the lowest bands in twisted bilayer graphene
are delocalized in momentum space, and we find 0.4 . |δρG | . 4.
In all cases considered, Im(ρG ) . 0.1Re(ρG ). This imaginary
part arises from the small breaking of the symmetry between
the AA and the AB and BA regions in the Hamiltonian (22).
B We therefore describe the Hartree potential in terms of its real
part only.
We approximate the fully self-consistent Hartree potential by
describing it in terms of the six shortest reciprocal lattice vec-
tors. Our calculations indicate that the next set of higher Fourier
components are an order of magnitude smaller. The amplitude
of the Hartree potential, VH , determines the parameters of the
Hamiltonian. As function of these parameters and the filling,
n, we determine the charge density, ρG . The self-consistency
equation for the Hartree potential can be written as

C 2πe 2
VH (n) = ρG (VH , n) ≡ V0 ρG (VH , n), [2]
|G|

where n is the band filling.

In Fig. 2A, we show the density of states for the original
problem and also for a Hartree potential of amplitude VH =
1 meV. The Hartree potential distorts the bands considerably.
The Fourier transform of the charge as function of band filling,
shown in Fig. 2B, looks very similar for both cases—the dif-
ference is just in a normalization factor, and we only give the
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Fig. 1. (A) Low-energy bands of a twisted bilayer with twist angle θ = 1.05◦
example for VH = 0.
plotted over the full Brillouin zone (see also Fig. 2). (B) Charge densities of As we increase the Hartree potential, the energies at the K , K 0
states at the Γ point in the Brillouin Zone (t for top layer; b for bottom). (C) and M points are raised in comparison with those at the Γ
The charge density at the K point summed over the two degenerate states. point, and the upper band becomes flatter (as can be seen in SI
(Scale bars: 1 nm.) Appendix, Fig. S2, this effect is largely described by first-order

Guinea and Walet PNAS | December 26, 2018 | vol. 115 | no. 52 | 13175
 A Exchange Potential
We now consider the Fock part of the Hartree–Fock approx-
imation. Exchange coupling takes place between states in the
same valley with identical spin. The exchange potential plays
an important role in monolayer graphene, as it is the origin of
the renormalization of the Fermi velocity (38, 39). Unlike the
case of the Hartree term considered above, the effect of the
exchange potential will lead to nontrivial changes in the bands
at the neutrality point. The small value of the Fermi velocity, ṽF ,
in twisted bilayer graphene implies that the effective fine struc-
ture constant associated with the Dirac cones, α = e 2 /(~ṽF ) is
very large, α ∼ 102 . The renormalization of ṽF has a small value
for the high-energy cutoff, which is of the order of the bandwidth
W . The renormalization of ṽF depends logarithmically on W
and linearly on α, so that the corrections to ṽF will be important.
The main effect will be a depletion of the density of states at the
Dirac point.
B Besides the renormalization of the Fermi velocity, the ex-
change potential leads to an overall widening of the bands. We
can estimate this effect by considering the shift of the states at
the band edges, located at the Γ point. As the Coulomb poten-
tial is singular at zero momentum, the leading contribution to
the shift of the states at the Γ point comes from the interaction
with occupied states with similar momenta. The occupied states
at the bottom of the band have a similar internal structure to
C the neighboring ones, differing only in the crystal momentum. If
we assume that this approximation is valid up to some cutoff in
momentum space at a distance Λ from the Γ point, the energy
shift has the value
Z Λ
1 e2 e 2Λ
δex
Γ ≈− 2π kdk = − . [3]
4π 2 k 2π

Assuming that Λ . L−1 M , we find that the shift of the lower Γ

state and the bandwidth scale as δΓ ≈ e 2 /(LM ). We have ana-
lyzed numerically the decay of the overlap S = |hφΓ |φk i|2 as a
function of the distance between k and Γ. Results are shown in
SI Appendix, Fig. S1. They show that Λ ≈ 0.1 × (4π)/(3LM ). We
thus obtain
2e 2
δex
Γ ≈ −0.1 . [4]
3LM
Fig. 2. (A) Dependence of the density of states on the value of the Hartree This energy is an approximation for the increase in bandwidth.
potential for a twisted bilayer graphene with a twist angle θ = 1.05◦ . As the unoccupied state at the top of the conduction band has an
The blue line is for VH = 0 and the red one for VH = 1 meV. The verti- internal structure which is orthogonal to the states at the lower Γ
cal scale is truncated: The red peak extends more than twice as high as point, it will not experience a significant exchange shift.
shown. The dotted lines are the Fermi energies at neutrality. (B) Fourier
transform of the charge density in the lowest state above the Fermi
energy, with the dominant peak at zero momentum suppressed. The
area of the circles is equal to the magnitude of the Fourier components
for each of the two layers. The momentum distribution is concentrated
at the six lowest wavevectors, Gi . (C) The value of the charge density
at wavevector G1 as a function of the filling relative to charge neu-
trality. The blue line gives the real part, and the yellow line gives the
imaginary part.

perturbation theory). We show a selection of bands for a few

choices of the Hartree potential in Fig. 3. The Hartree poten-
tial is determined by the dimensionless parameter ρG , which by
definition vanishes at the neutrality point. Its value shows an
approximately linear a dependence on the fractional band filling,
n, ρG ≈ A(VH )(n − n0 (VH )), as can be seen in Fig. 4.
For  = 4 and LM ≈ d /θ ≈ 13 nm, we obtain V0 ≈ 28 meV.
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Using this value, the solution to Eq. 2 is shown in SI Appendix,

Fig. S5. The value of VH (n) grows approximately linearly Fig. 3. Bands calculated for different electrostatic potentials. The blue lines
with n. The value of VH (n) changes from 0 at the neutrality are the bands at charge neutrality; the green lines are at VH = −0.5 meV;
point, to VH (4) ≈ 22 meV when all of the low-energy bands are and the orange, red, and dark-red lines are at VH = 0.5, 1, and 2 meV,
occupied. respectively.

13176 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810947115 Guinea and Walet

 can add the Hartree potential to the simplified two-parameter
tight binding model described in ref. 22 to obtain
X X
Hlocal = H0 + HH = t1 ci† cj + it2 ci† cj
hi,j i hhi,j ii
X
+ V̄H ci† cj + h.c., [7]
hhi,j ii,{i,j }∈{Ā,B̄}

where t1 and t2 are real-valued tight binding parameters, V̄H

parameterizes the Hartree potential, and hi, j i and hhi, j ii are
first and second nearest neighbors. This Hamiltonian ignores a
number of the hopping terms considered in refs. 21–23, but the
terms included are sufficient for a discussion focused on the role
of the Hartree potential. Results for different values of V̄H are
shown in Fig. 5. The bands are in reasonable agreement with the
bands obtained using the continuum model, shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 4. Dependence of the real part of ρG on band filling for a twisted The description of the Hartree potential in terms of effec-
bilayer graphene with Hartree potentials described by different values of tive hopping parameters allows us to define an Wannier-based
the amplitude VH . The band filling is normalized such that n0 corresponds to model for the long-range Coulomb interaction in graphene. The
the half-filled case, and n − n0 = 4 to the case where the four upper bands occupation of Wannier functions leads to charge accumulation
are filled. We use values of VH from 0 to 24 meV. at the AA sites. The strength of the potential at a given site
is proportional to the occupancy of the six Wannier functions

APPLIED PHYSICAL
centered at the neighboring AB and BA sites. The ensuing

SCIENCES
Description of Electrostatic Effects in Terms of Local potential leads both to a change in the on-site energies and
Interactions to the creation of effective couplings between Wannier orbitals
The Hartree potential significantly distorts the lowest band in a which are second nearest neighbors in the honeycomb lattice,
twisted bilayer graphene, but it leaves the bands which lie fur- but overlap in the same AA region. We obtain the effective
ther away from the Dirac point mostly unchanged. Hence, it Hamiltonian
can be expected that the Hartree potential does not significantly " !2
alter the Wannier wavefunctions for these bands. These Wannier X X †
functions have been extensively discussed (e.g., refs. 21–23). For Hint = VH 1 ci,m ci,m
a given valley, the two Wannier wavefunctions can be approxi- m i=1,...,6

mated by functions centered in the AB and BA regions of the

  
X X
Moiré pattern. These regions form a honeycomb lattice. Each +VH 2  ci†0 ,m ci 0 ,m  †
ci,m cj ,m , [8]
Wannier function has a three-lobe structure with lobes peaked i 0 =1,...,6 hhi,j ii
at the AA regions. The Hartree potential can be projected onto
these wavefunctions, and it can be written in terms of diagonal
where the sum over the m index implies a sum over the centers
and off-diagonal matrix elements. Each Wannier function is a
of the hexagons in the honeycomb lattice, which define the AA
four-component spinor, with weight on both sublattices in each
sites. The first term in Hint describes the local repulsion between
of the two layers; that is,
charges placed at the AA sites, and it has been discussed in ref.
X iS ,iV
32. The second term in Hint describes a hopping which depends
|mi = αm |iS , iV i , [5] on the charge state at the AA regions. The description of the
iS ,iV Hartree potential depends only on the Coulomb interaction,
parameterized by e 2 /(LM ). Hence, we expect that both terms
where {iS , iV } label the sublattice and valley degrees of freedom.
Each of the components has a different symmetry around the
AA lobes, with angular momentum ` = −1, 0, 0, 1; ref. 22. The
Hartree potential is diagonal in sublattice, layer, and spin space.
The matrix elements hm|VH |mi where m, n = 1, . . . , 6 label the
six sites around a given AA region, can be written as
X  i ,i ∗ i ,j
hm|VH |ni = αmS V αnS V hiS , iV |V̂H |iS , iV i. [6]

The functions m, n belong either to the Ā or the B̄ sublattice

in the emergent honeycomb lattice with the Moiré pattern as
a building block. We choose the sites m = 1, 3, 5 to belong to
the Ā sublattice, and the sites m = 2, 4, 6 to belong to the B̄
sublattice. The angular momentum of the different components
of each Wannier function determines the phase of the ampli-
iS ,iV
tudes αm in Eq. 6. Matrix elements between functions which
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belong to different sublattices require the evaluation of inte-

grals between states with angular momentum ` = ±1 and states Fig. 5. Band structure of a simple tight binding model based on the
with ` = 0. The phases shown in ref. 22 suggest that these ele- Wannier functions of twisted bilayer graphene, including the electrostatic
ments vanish. The remaining matrix elements describe a second potential. Black lines, bands at charge neutrality; red and blue lines, bands
nearest-neighbor hopping term in the Moiré lattice. Hence, we as function of increasing Hartree potential.

Guinea and Walet PNAS | December 26, 2018 | vol. 115 | no. 52 | 13177
 A B C HB-dG = (Hmf − F Iσ ) τz + ∆1 (k)VH 1 Iσ τx
h  
+ ∆2 (k) 1 + e ik·ã1 + e ik·ã2
 i
+∆3 (k) e ik·(−ã1 −ã2 ) + e ik·(−ã1 +ã2 ) + e ik·(ã1 −ã2 )
× VH 1 σx τx + ∆4 (k)VH 2 Iσ τx + ∆5 (k)VH 2 σx τx .
[9]

D E F Here, Iσ and σx are the identity matrix and a Pauli matrix in

sublattice space, τx and τz operate on the electron hole index,
and F is the Fermi energy. The vectors ãi are the lattice vec-
tors of the honeycomb lattice. The values of ∆1 (k), . . . , ∆5 (k)
have to be determined self-consistently; SI Appendix, section 6,
Eq. S1.
The existence of superconductivity is determined by the func-
tions f (k) and in g(k) defined in SI Appendix, section 6, Eq.
S2. The function f (k) is always positive. The terms in Eq. 9
Fig. 6. Self-consistent Fermi surface for different band fillings. The gray
proportional to VH 1 describe a repulsive interaction which can-
areas denote the filled states. The function g(k) in SI Appendix, Eq. S2
is negative in the blue region, where superconductivity is favored. n = 1
not lead to superconductivity in an isotropic s-wave-like channel.
(A), n = 1.5 (B), n = 2 (C), n = 2.5 (D), n = 3 (E), and n = 3.5 (F). The mag- This repulsive interaction is somewhat underestimated, as inter-
nitude of n gives the fraction of bands filled. The value n = 0 denotes actions over length scales longer than LM are ignored (see,
the neutrality point, and n = 4 describes four filled bands. The Fermi sur- however, the estimate of the screening length in SI Appendix,
faces are calculated by using the full continuum Hamiltonian, including the section 5). On the other hand, the function g(k) is positive near
Hartree term. the Γ point and negative in a large region near the edges of
the Brillouin zone. If g(k) < 0, superconductivity becomes pos-
sible. Fermi surfaces for different fillings are shown in Fig. 6
in Hint scale as VH 1 , VH 2 ∝ e 2 /(LM ). The relation between and compared with the region in the Brillouin zone, where
VH 1 and VH 2 can be inferred from the band structures shown g(k) < 0.
in Fig. 3. The Hartree potential used to calculate the bands, VH , The results in Fig. 6 show that, typically, there are two pockets
gives the scale of the on-site term in Hint in Eq. 8, parameterized at the Fermi surface and that, for a large range of fillings, super-
by VH 1 , while the relative shift between the Γ and K points is due conductivity is possible in one pocket but not in the other.
to the assisted hopping term, VH 2 . The difference in the Hartree As a result, the superconducting state will show two different
potential between the AB and AA regions in the Moiré cell is gaps, or a gap-less pocket coexisting with a gapped one. The
9VH , which gives an upper bound to the on-site energy described order of magnitude of the higher superconducting gap will be
by VH 1 , VH 1 . (9VH )/3 (note that the weight of a Wannier on 2
∆sc ∼ We −(WLM )/e , where W is the bandwidth. Repulsive
a given AA region is 1/3). On the other hand, the shift of the K interactions at the atomic scale not considered here, such as an
point with respect to the Γ point induced by the hopping term in on-site Hubbard term, can suppress the superconducting phase
Eq. 8 is K − Γ = 9 VH 2 . From the results in Fig. 3, we conclude at integer fillings (18).
that VH 2 ∼ VH 1 .
Conclusions
Electron-Assisted Hopping and Superconductivity The occupation of the low-energy bands in a twisted bilayer
The existence of assisted hopping terms (40) in the effective graphene leads to inhomogeneous electrostatic potentials of
Hamiltonian of twisted bilayer graphene seems natural, as dif- magnitude of order of e 2 /(LM ), where LM is the Moiré unit
ferent Wannier functions overlap at regions where charging length. This estimate is comparable, or larger, than the width of
effects are maximal (21–23). The effect of assisted hopping the band.
interactions in high-Tc superconductivity has been studied in Electrostatic effects, induced by charging the system away
refs. 41 and 42. The most likely instability favored by such an from the neutrality point, distort the bands significantly. The
interaction is superconductivity, since (i) the effective interac- states at the edges of the Brillouin zone, at K and M ,
tion is attractive for some range of fillings, and (ii) an assisted are shifted with respect to the states near the center of the
hopping term does not lead to many of the other typical Brillouin zone, the point Γ. The exchange term, on the other
broken-symmetry phases, such as a magnetic state, or a charge- hand, leads to an increase in the bandwidth, approximately a
density wave. fraction of e 2 /(LM ).
We analyze the effect on superconductivity of the interac- The band distortion induced by the electrostatic potential
tion term in Eq. 8 using the Bogoliubov–de Gennes approx- can be described in terms of induced assisted hopping cou-
imation. For simplicity, we consider here only superconduct- plings. These terms fit naturally with the complex overlapping
ing states with spin zero and invariant under time-reversal Wannier functions which give a local description of twisted
symmetry. The competition between the repulsion described bilayer graphene. Assisted hopping interactions favor generally
by the term proportional to VH 1 and the assisted hopping superconductivity, and we explicitly show that s-wave pairing is
term, VH 2 , can lead to many other superconducting phases. possible at certain fillings.
The local description derived from Eq. 8 is not strictly nec-
essary for this step; SI Appendix, section 5. The electron and Note. After the submission of this manuscript, ref. 40 was posted,
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hole Hamiltonians are described in momentum space by two also analyzing assisted hopping terms in graphene.
2 × 2 matrices, one for electrons with a given spin and val-
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank E. Bascones, M. J. Calderón, V. T. Phong,
ley index and another for holes with opposite spin and val- B. Amorim, R. Miranda, and A. K. Geim for useful conversations. This
ley index. The mean field decoupling of the interaction term work was supported by the European Commission under Graphene Flagship
leads to Contract CNECTICT-604391.

13178 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810947115 Guinea and Walet

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