Twisted chiral superconductivity in photodoped frustrated Mott insulators

Recent advances in ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy provide access to hidden phases of correlated matter, including light-induced superconducting states. The theoretical understanding of these nonequilibrium phases remains limited, particularly for correlated materials on frustrated lattices. Here we demonstrate that photodoping can induce a new type of chiral superconducting phase in frustrated Mott insulators by forming a condensate of doublons and holons. This metastable phase features a spatially varying order parameter with a 120 degrees phase twist which breaks both time-reversal and inversion symmetry. Under an external electric pulse, the 120 degrees chiral superconducting state can exhibit a second-order supercurrent perpendicular to the field in addition to a first-order parallel response, similar to a nonlinear anomalous Hall effect. Light-induced artificial gauge fields may be used to further stabilize this hidden phase. The presented results demonstrate that the light-induced superconducting state on a triangular lattice is of chiral nature and exhibits distinguishing properties which can be revealed in pump-probe experiments. The general mechanism applies to Mott insulators on various frustrated lattices and is tunable by optical means.