No Arabic abstract
UBe13 was the second discovered heavy fermion superconductor, and numerous pieces of evidence exist that imply that it is an unconventional (non-BCS, non-s wave pairing symmetry) superconductor. Exhibiting even more signs of unconventional superconductivity, Th-doped UBe13 is perhaps the most puzzling of any of the unconventional superconductors. This review considers both the parent, undoped compound as well as the more interesting Th-doped UBe13. After summarizing the rather thorough characterization, which because of the interest in these compounds has continued from their discovery in 1983 and 1984 to date, these properties are compared with a recent template for determining whether a superconductor is unconventional. Finally, further experiments are suggested.
We investigate the collision-limited electronic Raman response and the attenuation of ultrasound in spin-singlet d-wave superconductors at low temperatures. The dominating elastic collisions are treated within a t-matrix approximation, which combines the description of weak (Born) and strong (unitary) impurity scattering. In the long wavelength limit a two-fluid description of both response and transport emerges. Collisions are here seen to exclusively dominate the relaxational dynamics of the (Bogoliubov) quasiparticle system and the analysis allows for a clear connection of response and transport phenomena. When applied to quasi-2-d superconductors like the cuprates, it turns out that the transport parameter associated with the Raman scattering intensity for B1g and B2g photon polarization is closely related to the corresponding components of the shear viscosity tensor, which dominates the attenuation of ultrasound. At low temperatures we present analytic solutions of the transport equations, resulting in a non-power-law behavior of the transport parameters on temperature.
In contrast to conventional s-wave superconductivity, unconventional (e.g. p or d-wave) superconductivity is strongly suppressed even by relatively weak disorder. Upon approaching the superconductor-metal transition, the order parameter amplitude becomes increasingly inhomogeneous leading to effective granularity and a phase ordering transition described by the Mattis model of spin glasses. One consequence of this is that at low enough temperatures, between the clean unconventional superconducting and the diffusive metallic phases, there is necessarily an intermediate superconducting phase which exhibits s-wave symmetry on macroscopic scales.
Topological superconductors (TSCs) are correlated quantum states with simultaneous off-diagonal long-range order and nontrivial topological invariants. They produce gapless or zero energy boundary excitations, including Majorana zero modes and chiral Majorana edge states with topologically protected phase coherence essential for fault-tolerant quantum computing. Candidate TSCs are very rare in nature. Here, we propose a novel route toward emergent quasi-one-dimensional (1D) TSCs in naturally embedded quantum structures such as atomic line defects in unconventional spin-singlet $s$-wave and $d$-wave superconductors. We show that inversion symmetry breaking and charge transfer due to the missing atoms lead to the occupation of incipient impurity bands and mixed parity spin singlet and triplet Cooper pairing of neighboring electrons traversing the line defect. Nontrivial topological invariants arise and occupy a large part of the parameter space, including the time reversal symmetry breaking Zeeman coupling due to applied magnetic field or defect-induced magnetism, creating TSCs in different topological classes with robust Majorana zero modes at both ends of the line defect. Beyond providing a novel mechanism for the recent discovery of zero-energy bound states at both ends of an atomic line defect in monolayer Fe(Te,Se) superconductors, the findings pave the way for new material realizations of the simplest and most robust 1D TSCs using embedded quantum structures in unconventional superconductors with large pairing energy gaps and high transition temperatures.
We use magnetic long range order as a tool to probe the Cooper pair wave function in the iron arsenide superconductors. We show theoretically that antiferromagnetism and superconductivity can coexist in these materials only if Cooper pairs form an unconventional, sign-changing state. The observation of coexistence in Ba(Fe$_{1-x}$Co$_{x}$)$_{2}$As$_{2}$ then demonstrates unconventional pairing in this material. The detailed agreement between theory and neutron diffraction experiments, in particular for the unusual behavior of the magnetic order below $T_{c}$, demonstrates the robustness of our conclusions. Our findings strongly suggest that superconductivity is unconventional in all members of the iron arsenide family.
Impurity nuclear spin relaxation is studied theoretically. A single impurity generates a bound state localized around the impurity atom in unconventional superconductors. With increasing impurity potential, the relaxation rate $T_1^{-1}$ is reduced by the impurity potential. However, it has a peak at low temperatures due to the impurity bound state. The peak disappears at non-impurity sites. The impurity site NMR measurement detecting a local electronic structure just on the impurity atom is very useful for identifying the unconventional pairing states.