Double helix nodal line superconductor
Abstract
Time-reversal invariant superconductors in three dimensions may contain nodal lines in the Brillouin zone, which behave exactly as Wilson loops of 3d momentum-space Chern-Simons theory of the Berry connection. Here we study the conditions of realizing linked nodal lines (Wilson loops), which yield a topological contribution to the thermal magnetoelectric coefficient that is given by the Chern-Simons action. We find the essential conditions are the existence of torus or higher genus fermi surfaces and spiral spin textures. We construct such a model with two torus fermi surfaces, where a generic spin-dependent interaction leads to double-helix-like linked nodal lines as the superconductivity is developed.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1704.01661,
title = {Double helix nodal line superconductor},
author = {Xiao-Qi Sun and Biao Lian and Shou-Cheng Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1704.01661},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
9 pages, 6 figures, including Supplemental Material. Published version