TY - JOUR
T1 - Topology and symmetry of surface Majorana arcs in cyclic superconductors
AU - Mizushima, Takeshi
AU - Nitta, Muneto
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank K. Machida for bringing the new pairing scenario of heavy-fermion superconductor to our attention. This paper was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [Grants No. JP16K05448 (T.M.) and No. JP16H03948 (M.N.)], “Topological Materials Science” (Grant No. JP15H05855), and a “Nuclear Matter in Neutron Stars Investigated by Experiments and Astronomical Observations” (Grant No. JP15H00841) KAKENHI grant on innovation areas from Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). The work of M.N. is also supported in part by the MEXT-Supported Program for the Strategic Research Foundation at Private Universities “Topological Science” (Grant No. S1511006).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 American Physical Society.
PY - 2018/1/9
Y1 - 2018/1/9
N2 - We study the topology and symmetry of surface Majorana arcs in superconductors with nonunitary "cyclic" pairing. Cyclic p-wave pairing may be realized in a cubic or tetrahedral crystal, while it is a candidate for the interior P23 superfluids of neutron stars. The cyclic state is an admixture of full gap and nodal gap with eight Weyl points and the low-energy physics is governed by itinerant Majorana fermions. We here show the evolution of surface states from Majorana cone to Majorana arcs under rotation of surface orientation. The Majorana cone is protected solely by an accidental spin rotation symmetry and fragile against spin-orbit coupling, while the arcs are attributed to two topological invariants: the first Chern number and one-dimensional winding number. Lastly, we discuss how topologically protected surface states inherent to the nonunitary cyclic pairing can be captured from surface probes in candidate compounds, such as U1-xThxBe13. We examine tunneling conductance spectra for two competitive scenarios in U1-xThxBe13 - the degenerate Eu scenario and the accidental scenario.
AB - We study the topology and symmetry of surface Majorana arcs in superconductors with nonunitary "cyclic" pairing. Cyclic p-wave pairing may be realized in a cubic or tetrahedral crystal, while it is a candidate for the interior P23 superfluids of neutron stars. The cyclic state is an admixture of full gap and nodal gap with eight Weyl points and the low-energy physics is governed by itinerant Majorana fermions. We here show the evolution of surface states from Majorana cone to Majorana arcs under rotation of surface orientation. The Majorana cone is protected solely by an accidental spin rotation symmetry and fragile against spin-orbit coupling, while the arcs are attributed to two topological invariants: the first Chern number and one-dimensional winding number. Lastly, we discuss how topologically protected surface states inherent to the nonunitary cyclic pairing can be captured from surface probes in candidate compounds, such as U1-xThxBe13. We examine tunneling conductance spectra for two competitive scenarios in U1-xThxBe13 - the degenerate Eu scenario and the accidental scenario.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevB.97.024506
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevB.97.024506
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85040541424
SN - 2469-9950
VL - 97
JO - Physical Review B-Condensed Matter
JF - Physical Review B-Condensed Matter
IS - 2
M1 - 024506
ER -