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Majorana multipole response of topological superconductors

Superconductivity 2019-09-04 v1 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics Strongly Correlated Electrons

Abstract

In contrast to elementary Majorana particles, emergent Majorana fermions (MFs) in condensed-matter systems may have electromagnetic multipoles. We developed a general theory of magnetic multipoles for surface helical MFs on time-reversal-invariant superconductors. The results show that the multipole response is governed by crystal symmetry, and that a one-to-one correspondence exists between the symmetry of Cooper pairs and the representation of magnetic multipoles under crystal symmetry. The latter property provides a way to identify nonconventional pairing symmetry via the magnetic response of surface MFs. We also find that most helical MFs exhibit a magnetic-dipole response, but those on superconductors with spin-3/2 electrons may display a magnetic-octupole response in leading order, which uniquely characterizes high-spin superconductors. Detection of such an octupole response provides direct evidence of high-spin superconductivity, such as in half-Heusler superconductors.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1812.01857,
  title  = {Majorana multipole response of topological superconductors},
  author = {Shingo Kobayashi and Ai Yamakage and Yukio Tanaka and Masatoshi Sato},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.01857},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

17 pages, 5 figures