Cargando…
Chiral superconductivity in UTe(2) probed by anisotropic low-energy excitations
Chiral spin-triplet superconductivity is a topologically nontrivial pairing state with broken time-reversal symmetry, which can host Majorana quasiparticles. The heavy-fermion superconductor UTe(2) exhibits peculiar properties of spin-triplet pairing, and the possible chiral state has been actively...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2023
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10205722/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37221184 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-38688-y |
_version_ | 1785046086623166464 |
---|---|
author | Ishihara, Kota Roppongi, Masaki Kobayashi, Masayuki Imamura, Kumpei Mizukami, Yuta Sakai, Hironori Opletal, Petr Tokiwa, Yoshifumi Haga, Yoshinori Hashimoto, Kenichiro Shibauchi, Takasada |
author_facet | Ishihara, Kota Roppongi, Masaki Kobayashi, Masayuki Imamura, Kumpei Mizukami, Yuta Sakai, Hironori Opletal, Petr Tokiwa, Yoshifumi Haga, Yoshinori Hashimoto, Kenichiro Shibauchi, Takasada |
author_sort | Ishihara, Kota |
collection | PubMed |
description | Chiral spin-triplet superconductivity is a topologically nontrivial pairing state with broken time-reversal symmetry, which can host Majorana quasiparticles. The heavy-fermion superconductor UTe(2) exhibits peculiar properties of spin-triplet pairing, and the possible chiral state has been actively discussed. However, the symmetry and nodal structure of its order parameter in the bulk, which determine the Majorana surface states, remains controversial. Here we focus on the number and positions of superconducting gap nodes in the ground state of UTe(2). Our magnetic penetration depth measurements for three field orientations in three crystals all show the power-law temperature dependence with exponents close to 2, which excludes single-component spin-triplet states. The anisotropy of low-energy quasiparticle excitations indicates multiple point nodes near the k(y)- and k(z)-axes in momentum space. These results can be consistently explained by a chiral B(3u) + iA(u) non-unitary state, providing fundamentals of the topological properties in UTe(2). |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10205722 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-102057222023-05-25 Chiral superconductivity in UTe(2) probed by anisotropic low-energy excitations Ishihara, Kota Roppongi, Masaki Kobayashi, Masayuki Imamura, Kumpei Mizukami, Yuta Sakai, Hironori Opletal, Petr Tokiwa, Yoshifumi Haga, Yoshinori Hashimoto, Kenichiro Shibauchi, Takasada Nat Commun Article Chiral spin-triplet superconductivity is a topologically nontrivial pairing state with broken time-reversal symmetry, which can host Majorana quasiparticles. The heavy-fermion superconductor UTe(2) exhibits peculiar properties of spin-triplet pairing, and the possible chiral state has been actively discussed. However, the symmetry and nodal structure of its order parameter in the bulk, which determine the Majorana surface states, remains controversial. Here we focus on the number and positions of superconducting gap nodes in the ground state of UTe(2). Our magnetic penetration depth measurements for three field orientations in three crystals all show the power-law temperature dependence with exponents close to 2, which excludes single-component spin-triplet states. The anisotropy of low-energy quasiparticle excitations indicates multiple point nodes near the k(y)- and k(z)-axes in momentum space. These results can be consistently explained by a chiral B(3u) + iA(u) non-unitary state, providing fundamentals of the topological properties in UTe(2). Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-05-23 /pmc/articles/PMC10205722/ /pubmed/37221184 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-38688-y Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Ishihara, Kota Roppongi, Masaki Kobayashi, Masayuki Imamura, Kumpei Mizukami, Yuta Sakai, Hironori Opletal, Petr Tokiwa, Yoshifumi Haga, Yoshinori Hashimoto, Kenichiro Shibauchi, Takasada Chiral superconductivity in UTe(2) probed by anisotropic low-energy excitations |
title | Chiral superconductivity in UTe(2) probed by anisotropic low-energy excitations |
title_full | Chiral superconductivity in UTe(2) probed by anisotropic low-energy excitations |
title_fullStr | Chiral superconductivity in UTe(2) probed by anisotropic low-energy excitations |
title_full_unstemmed | Chiral superconductivity in UTe(2) probed by anisotropic low-energy excitations |
title_short | Chiral superconductivity in UTe(2) probed by anisotropic low-energy excitations |
title_sort | chiral superconductivity in ute(2) probed by anisotropic low-energy excitations |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10205722/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37221184 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-38688-y |
work_keys_str_mv | AT ishiharakota chiralsuperconductivityinute2probedbyanisotropiclowenergyexcitations AT roppongimasaki chiralsuperconductivityinute2probedbyanisotropiclowenergyexcitations AT kobayashimasayuki chiralsuperconductivityinute2probedbyanisotropiclowenergyexcitations AT imamurakumpei chiralsuperconductivityinute2probedbyanisotropiclowenergyexcitations AT mizukamiyuta chiralsuperconductivityinute2probedbyanisotropiclowenergyexcitations AT sakaihironori chiralsuperconductivityinute2probedbyanisotropiclowenergyexcitations AT opletalpetr chiralsuperconductivityinute2probedbyanisotropiclowenergyexcitations AT tokiwayoshifumi chiralsuperconductivityinute2probedbyanisotropiclowenergyexcitations AT hagayoshinori chiralsuperconductivityinute2probedbyanisotropiclowenergyexcitations AT hashimotokenichiro chiralsuperconductivityinute2probedbyanisotropiclowenergyexcitations AT shibauchitakasada chiralsuperconductivityinute2probedbyanisotropiclowenergyexcitations |