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Heavy Fermion Superconductivity in the Quadrupole Ordered State of PrV2Al20

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2015-06-22 v1

Abstract

PrV2_2Al20_{20} is a rare example of a heavy fermion system based on strong hybridization between conduction electrons and nonmagnetic quadrupolar moments of the cubic Γ3\Gamma_3 ground doublet. Here, we report that a high-quality single crystal of PrV2_2Al20_{20} exhibits superconductivity at Tc=T_{\rm c}= 50 mK in the antiferroquadrupole-ordered state under ambient pressure. The heavy fermion character of the superconductivity is evident from the specific heat jump of ΔC/T0.3\Delta C/T \sim 0.3 J/mol K2^2 and the effective mass m/m0140m^*/m_0 \sim 140 estimated from the temperature dependence of the upper critical field. Furthermore, the high-quality single crystals exhibit double transitions at TQT_{\rm Q} = 0.75 K and TT^{*} = 0.65 K associated with quadrupole and octapole degrees of freedom of the Γ3\Gamma_3 doublet. In the ordered state, the specific heat C/TC/T shows a T3T^3 dependence, indicating the gapless mode associated with the quadrupole and/or octapole order. The strong sensitivity to impurity of the superconductivity suggests unconventional character due to significant quadrupolar fluctuations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1407.0866,
  title  = {Heavy Fermion Superconductivity in the Quadrupole Ordered State of PrV2Al20},
  author = {Masaki Tsujimoto and Yosuke Matsumoto and Takahiro Tomita and Akito Sakai and Satoru Nakatsuji},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1407.0866},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

5 pages, 4 figures