No Arabic abstract
Nuclear quadrupole resonance measurements were performed on the heavy fermion superconductor Ce2PdIn8. Above the Kondo coherence temperature T_coh simeq 30K, the spin-lattice relaxation rate 1/T_1 is temperature independent, whereas at lower temperatures, down to the onset of superconductivity at T_c = 0.64K, it is nearly proportional to T^{1/2}. Below T_c, 1/T_1 shows no coherence peak and decreases as T^3 down to 75mK. All these findings indicate that Ce2PdIn8 is close to the antiferromagnetic quantum critical point, and the superconducting state has an unconventional character with line nodes in the superconducting gap.
Nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) measurements were performed on the heavy fermion superconductor Ce3PtIn11 with Tc = 0.32 K. The temperature dependence of both spin-lattice relaxation rate 1/T1 and NQR spectra evidences the occurrence of two successive magnetic transitions with TN1 = 2.2 K and TN2 = 2.0 K. In successive magnetic transitions, even though the magnetic moment at the Ce(2) site plays a major role, the magnetic moment at the Ce(1) site also contributes to some extent. While a commensurate antiferromagnetic ordered state appears for TN2 < T < TN1, a partially incommensurate antiferromagnetic ordered state is suggested for T < TN2.
The interplay between magnetism and superconductivity has been a central issue in unconventional superconductors. While the dynamic magnetism could be the source of electron pairing, the static magnetism is generally believed to compete with superconductivity. In this sense, the observation of Q phase, the coupled spin-density wave order and superconductivity, in the heavy-fermion superconductor CeCoIn5 is very puzzling. Whether this Q phase origins from the novel Fulde-Ferrel-Larkin-Ovchinnikov state is under hot debate. Here we report the resistivity and thermal conductivity study of a newly discovered heavy-fermion superconductor Ce2PdIn8 down to 50 mK. We find an unusual field-induced quantum critical point at the upper critical field Hc2 and unconventional nodal superconductivity in Ce2PdIn8. The jump of thermal conductivity k(H)/T near Hc2 suggests a first-order-like phase transition at low temperatures. These results mimic the features of the Q phase in CeCoIn5, implying that Ce2PdIn8 is another promising compound to investigate the exotic Q phase and FFLO state. The comparison between CeCoIn5 and Ce2PdIn8 may help to clarify the origin of the Q phase.
Julien et al. have commented on two of our publications claiming that we have made erroneous interpretations of the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) data. Specifically, they believe that their model of an extended staggered moment about a Zn impurity is the only interpretation of the data [Julien et al., Phys. Rev Lett. 84, 3422 (2000)]. Not only does their claim ignore models presented by other authors, we show that the model of Julien et al. [Phys. Rev Lett. 84, 3422 (2000)] does not consistently reproduce all of the NMR data.
While multiband systems are usually considered for flat-band physics, here we study one-band models that have flat portions in the dispersion to explore correlation effects in the 2D repulsive Hubbard model in an intermediate coupling regime. The FLEX+DMFT~(the dynamical mean-field theory combined with the fluctuation exchange approximation) is used to show that we have a crossover from ferromagnetic to antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations as the band filling is varied, which triggers a crossover from triplet to singlet pairings with a peculiar filling dependence that is dominated by the size of the flat region in the dispersion. A curious manifestation of the flat part appears as larger numbers of nodal lines associated with pairs extended in real space. We further detect non-Fermi liquid behavior in the momentum distribution function, frequency dependence of the self-energy and spectral function. These indicate correlation physics peculiar to flat-band systems.
We report $^{75}$As nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) studies on superconducting oxypnictide LaFeAsO$_{0.92}$F$_{0.08}$ ($T_{rm c}$ = 23 K). The temperature dependence of the spin lattice relaxation rate (1/$T_1$) decreases below $T_{rm c}$ without a coherence (Hebel-Slichter) peak and shows a temperature dependence that is not simple power-law nor exponential. We show that the result can be understood in terms of two superconducting gaps of either $d$- or ${pm}s$-wave symmetry, with the larger gap $Delta_1sim 4 k_{rm B}T_{rm c}$ and the smaller one $Delta_2 sim 1.5 k_{rm B}T_{rm c}$. Our result suggests that the multiple-gaps feature is universal in the oxypnictides superconductors, which is probably associated with the multiple electronic bands structure in this new class of materials. We also find that 1/$T_1T$ above $T_{rm c}$ increases with decreasing temperature, which suggests weak magnetic fluctuations in the normal state.