No Arabic abstract
We investigate torsional chiral magnetic effect (TCME) induced by skyrmion-vortex textures in the A phase of the superfluid $^3$He. In $^3$He-A, Bogoliubov quasiparticles around point nodes behave as Weyl fermions, and the nodal direction represented by the $ell$-vector may form a spatially modulated texture. $ell$-textures generate a chiral gauge field and a torsion field directly acting on the chirality of Weyl-Bogoliubov quasiparticles. It has been clarified by G. E. Volovik [Pisma Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. {bf 43}, 428 (1986)] that, if the $ell$-vector is twisted, the chiral gauge field is responsible for the chiral anomaly, leading to an anomalous current along ${ell}$. Here we show that, even for non-twisted $ell$-vector fields, a torsion arising from $ell$-textures brings about contributions to the equilibrium currents of Weyl-Bogoliubov quasiparticles along ${rm curl}{ell}$. This implies that while the anomalous current appears only for the twisted (Bloch-type) skyrmion of the $ell$-vector, the extra mass current due to TCME always exists regardless of the skyrmion type. Solving the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equation, we demonstrate that both Bloch-type and N{e}el-type skyrmions induce chiral fermion states with spectral asymmetry, and possess spatially inhomogeneous structures of Weyl bands in the real coordinate space. Furthermore, we discuss the contributions of Weyl-Bogoliubov quasiparticles and continuum states to the mass current density in the vicinity of the topological phase transition. In the weak coupling limit, continuum states give rise to backflow to the mass current generated by Weyl-Bogoliubov quasiparticles, which makes a non-negligible contribution to the orbital angular momentum. As the topological transition is approached, the mass current density is governed by the contribution of continuum states.
We propose a method utilizing edge current to observe Majorana fermions in the surface Andreev bound state for the superfluid $^3$He A- and B-phases. The proposal is based on self-consistent analytic solutions of quasi-classical Greens function with an edge. The local density of states and edge mass current in the A-phase or edge spin current in the B-phase can be obtained from these solutions. The edge current carried by the Majorana fermions is partially cancelled by quasiparticles (QPs) in the continuum state outside the superfluid gap. QPs contributing to the edge current in the continuum state are distributed in energy even away from the superfluid gap. The effect of Majorana fermions emerges in the depletion of the edge current by temperature within a low-temperature range. The observations that the reduction in the mass current is changed by $T^2$-power in the A-phase and the reduction in the spin current is changed by $T^3$-power in the B-phase establish the existence of Majorana fermions. We also point out another possibility for observing Majorana fermions by controlling surface roughness.
The critical field for superfluid $^3$He in axially compressed, anisotropic silica aerogel is shown to be the result of an anisotropic distribution of magnetic impurities affecting the superfluid $A$ phase. The critical field results from the fact that the $A$ phase is suppressed relative to the $B$ phase which is immune to the effects of magnetic impurities. In the absence of magnetic quasiparticle scattering in anisotropic aerogel, we find that the relative symmetry of $A$ and $B$ phase order parameters is the same as in isotropic aerogel, just as it is in pure superfluid $^3$He. These results are of potential importance for understanding unconventional superconductivity.
We consider fermionic states bound on domain walls in a Weyl superfluid $^3$He-A and on interfaces between $^3$He-A and a fully gapped topological superfluid $^3$He-B. We demonstrate that in both cases fermionic spectrum contains Fermi arcs which are continuous nodal lines of energy spectrum terminating at the projections of two Weyl points to the plane of surface states in momentum space. The number of Fermi arcs is determined by the index theorem which relates bulk values of topological invariant to the number of zero energy surface states. The index theorem is consistent with an exact spectrum of Bogolubov- de Gennes equation obtained numerically meanwhile the quasiclassical approximation fails to reproduce the correct number of zero modes. Thus we demonstrate that topology describes the properties of exact spectrum beyond quasiclassical approximation.
The discovery of superfluid $^{3}$He in high porosity silica aerogels, and subsequent experimental and theoretical work, have led to a better general understanding of quasiparticle scattering from impurities in unconventional pairing systems. It is immensely helpful for understanding impurity effects in the case of superfluid $^{3}$He that the structure of its order parameter is well-established. An overview of impurity effects is presented with emphasis on those experiments which have a quantitative interpretation in terms of theoretical models for homogeneous and inhomogeneous scattering. The latter can account successfully for most experimental results.
We have performed longitudinal ultrasound (9.5 MHz) attenuation measurements in the B-phase of superfluid $^3$He in 98% porosity aerogel down to the zero temperature limit for a wide range of pressures at zero magnetic field. The absolute attenuation was determined by direct transmission of sound pulses. Compared to the bulk fluid, our results revealed a drastically different behavior in attenuation, which is consistent with theoretical accounts with gapless excitations and a collision drag effect.