Superconducting gap with sign reversal between hole pockets in heavily hole-doped Ba1-xKxFe2As2

To gain insight into the unconventional superconductivity of Fe-pnictides with no electron pockets, we measure the thermal conductivity $kappa$ and penetration depth $lambda$ in the heavily hole-doped regime of Ba$_{1-x}$K$_x$Fe$_2$As$_2$. The residual thermal conductivity $(kappa/T)_{T rightarrow 0,{rm K}}$ and $T$-dependence of $lambda$ consistently indicate the fully gapped superconductivity at $x=0.76$ and the (line) nodal superconductivity at higher hole concentrations. The magnitudes of $frac{kappa}{T}cdot T_c|_{T rightarrow 0,{rm K}}$ and $frac{dlambda}{d(T/T_c)}$ at low temperatures, both of which are determined by the properties of the low-energy excitations, exhibit a highly unusual non-monotonic x-dependence. These results indicate a dramatic change of the nodal characteristics in a narrow doping range, suggesting a doping crossover of the gap function between the s-wave states with and without sign reversal between $Gamma$-centered hole pockets.

Novel Pauli-paramagnetic quantum phase in a Mott insulator

In Mott insulators, the strong electron-electron Coulomb repulsion prevents metallicity and charge excitations are gapped. In dimensions greater than one, their spins are usually ordered antiferromagnetically at low temperatures. Geometrical frustrations can destroy this long-range order, leading to exotic quantum spin liquid (QSL) states. However, their magnetic ground states have been a long-standing mystery. Here we show that a QSL state in the organic Mott insulator EtMe$_3$Sb[Pd(dmit)$_2$]$_2$ with two-dimensional triangular lattice has Pauli-paramagnetic-like low-energy excitations, which are a hallmark of itinerant fermions. Our torque magnetometry down to low temperatures (30 mK) up to high fields (32 T) reveal distinct residual paramagnetic susceptibility comparable to that in a half-filled two-dimensional metal. This demonstrates that the system is in a magnetically gapless ground state, a critical state with infinite magnetic correlation length. Moreover, our results are robust against deuteration, pointing toward the emergence of an extended `quantum critical phase, in which low-energy spin excitations behave as in paramagnetic metals with Fermi surface, despite the frozen charge degree of freedom.