English

Superconducting phase within the hidden-order state of the heavy-fermion material $\mathrm{URu_{2}Si_{2}}$

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2014-10-20 v4 Superconductivity

Abstract

An unconventional pairing mechanism in the heavy-fermion material URu2Si2\mathrm{URu_{2}Si_{2}} is studied. We propose a mixed singlet-triplet dd-density wave to be the hidden-order state in URu2Si2\mathrm{URu_{2}Si_{2}}. The exotic order is topologically nontrivial and supports a charge 2e2e skyrmionic spin texture, which is assumed to fractionalize into merons and antimerons at the deconfined quantum critical point. The interaction between these fractional particles results in a (pseudo)spin-singlet chiral dd-wave superconducting state, which breaks time reversal symmetry. Therefore, it is highly likely to produce a nonzero signal of the polar Kerr effect at the onset of the superconductivity, consistent with recent experiments. In addition, the nodal structures of the possible pairing functions in our model are consistent with the thermodynamic experiments in URu2Si2\mathrm{URu_{2}Si_{2}}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1308.5357,
  title  = {Superconducting phase within the hidden-order state of the heavy-fermion material $\mathrm{URu_{2}Si_{2}}$},
  author = {Chen-Hsuan Hsu and Sudip Chakravarty},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1308.5357},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

Version accepted in Phys. Rev. B