Imaging Magic-Angle Twisted Bilayer Graphene: Part I

Magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (MATBG) has long been known to host flat electronic bands that produce a wide variety of correlated states including superconducting, correlated insulating, and magnetic states [1-4]. However, several key properties of the correlated insulating states remain poorly understood, including the symmetries they break, the natures of their ground states, and the relationship between these states and superconductivity. In this first talk in a series of three presentations, I will discuss theoretical candidate ground states of MATBG and their relevant symmetries, and will introduce how we can use scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) experiments to distinguish among these candidates. The power of STM lies in its ability to resolve local electronic structure as a function of energy, allowing us to determine its spatial symmetries. By imaging these correlated phases at various length scales, we narrow down the candidate ground states based on these spatial symmetries.