No Arabic abstract
Spanning a broad range of physical systems, complex symmetry breaking is widely recognized as a hallmark of competing interactions. This is exemplified in superfluid $^3$He which has multiple thermodynamic phases with spin and orbital quantum numbers $S=1$ and $L=1$, that emerge on cooling from a nearly ferromagnetic Fermi liquid. The heavy fermion compound UPt$_3$ exhibits similar behavior clearly manifest in its multiple superconducting phases. However, consensus as to its order parameter symmetry has remained elusive. Our small angle neutron scattering measurements indicate a linear temperature dependence of the London penetration depth characteristic of nodal structure of the order parameter. Our theoretical analysis is consistent with assignment of its symmetry $L=3$ odd parity state for which one of the three thermodynamic phases in non-zero magnetic field is chiral.
We report measurements of the temperature dependence of the magnetic penetration depth in different quality polycrystalline samples of noncentrosymmetric LaNiC2 down to 0.05 K. This compound has no magnetic phases and breaks time-reversal symmetry. In our highest quality sample we observe a T^2 dependence below 0.4Tc indicative of nodes in the energy gap. We argue that previous results suggesting conventional s-wave behavior may have been affected by magnetic impurities.
Using small-angle neutron scattering we have measured the misalignment between an applied field of 4 kOe and the flux-line lattice in MgB$_2$, as the field is rotated away from the c axis by an angle $theta$. The measurements, performed at 4.9 K, showed the vortices canting towards the c axis for all field orientations. Using a two-band/two-gap model to calculate the magnetization we are able to fit our results yielding a penetration depth anisotropy, $glam = 1.1 pm 0.1$.
We report transverse field and zero field muon spin rotation studies of the superconducting rhenium oxide pyrochlore, Cd2Re2O7. Transverse field measurements (H=0.007 T) show line broadening below Tc, which is characteristic of a vortex state, demonstrating conclusively the type-II nature of this superconductor. The penetration depth is seen to level off below about 400 mK (T/Tc~0.4), with a rather large value of lambda (T=0)~7500A. The temperature independent behavior below ~ 400 mK is consistent with a nodeless superconducting energy gap. Zero-field measurements indicate no static magnetic fields developing below the transition temperature.
One of the features of the unconventional $s_pm$ state in iron-based superconductors is possibility to transform to the $s_{++}$ state with the increase of the nonmagnetic disorder. Detection of such a transition would prove the existence of the $s_pm$ state. Here we study the temperature dependence of the London magnetic penetration depth within the two-band model for the $s_pm$ and $s_{++}$ superconductors. By solving Eliashberg equations accounting for the spin-fluctuation mediated pairing and nonmagnetic impurities in the $T$-matrix approximation, we have derived a set of specific signatures of the $s_pm to s_{++}$ transition: (1) sharp change in the behavior of the penetration depth $lambda_{L}$ as a function of the impurity scattering rate at low temperatures; (2) before the transition, the slope of $Delta lambda_{L}(T) = lambda_{L}(T)-lambda_{L}(0)$ increases as a function of temperature, and after the transition this value decreases; (3) the sharp jump in the inverse square of the penetration depth as a function of the impurity scattering rate, $lambda_{L}^{-2}(Gamma_a)$, at the transition; (4) change from the single-gap behavior in the vicinity of the transition to the two-gap behavior upon increase of the impurity scattering rate in the superfluid density $rho_{s}(T)$.
We report on measurements of the temperature dependence of the magnetic penetration depth of a very high quality single crystal of nonmagnetic superconductor LaPt3Si without inversion symmetry. The results are compared with those previously reported for the isostructural antiferromagnetic superconductor CePt3Si. At low temperatures, the penetration depth follows a BCS exponential behavior that implies an isotropic energy gap in LaPt3Si, in contrast to a linear response that indicates line nodes in CePt3Si. These line nodes have been argued to be protected by symmetry or accidentally generated by parity mixing. The present results provide support for the viewpoint that parity mixing alone does not seem to lead to unconventionality in CePt3Si and that it requires the antiferromagnetic order to be included.