Topological superconductivity in the extended Kitaev-Heisenberg model
Abstract
We study superconducting pairing in the doped Kitaev-Heisenberg model by taking into account the recently proposed symmetric off-diagonal exchange . By performing a mean-field analysis, we classify all possible superconducting phases in terms of symmetry, explicitly taking into account effects of spin-orbit coupling. Solving the resulting gap equations self-consistently, we map out a phase diagram that involves several topologically nontrivial states. For , we find a competition between a time-reversal symmetry breaking chiral phase with Chern number and a time-reversal symmetric nematic phase that breaks the rotational symmetry of the lattice. On the other hand, for we find a time-reversal symmetric phase that preserves all the lattice symmetries, thus yielding clearly distinguishable experimental signatures for all superconducting phases. Both of the time-reversal symmetric phases display a transition to a non-trivial phase at high doping levels. Finally, we also include a symmetry-allowed spin-orbit coupling kinetic energy and show that it destroys a tentative symmetry protected topological order at lower doping levels. However, it can be used to tune the time-reversal symmetric phases into a non-trivial phase even at lower doping.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1710.10014,
title = {Topological superconductivity in the extended Kitaev-Heisenberg model},
author = {Johann Schmidt and Daniel D. Scherer and Annica M. Black-Schaffer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.10014},
year = {2018}
}