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Superfluid response in heavy fermion superconductors

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Abstract

Motivated by a recent London penetration depth measurement [H. Kim, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 027003 (2015)] and novel composite pairing scenario [O. Erten, R. Flint, and P. Coleman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 027002 (2015)] of the Yb-doped heavy fermion superconductor CeCoIn5, we revisit the issue of superfluid response in the microscopic heavy fermion lattice model. However, from the literature, an explicit expression for the superfluid response function in heavy fermion superconductors is rare. In this paper, we investigate the superfluid density response function in the celebrated Kondo–Heisenberg model. To be specific, we derive the corresponding formalism from an effective fermionic large-N mean-field pairing Hamiltonian whose pairing interaction is assumed to originate from the effective local antiferromagnetic exchange interaction. Interestingly, we find that the physically correct, temperature-dependent superfluid density formula can only be obtained if the external electromagnetic field is directly coupled to the heavy fermion quasi-particle rather than the bare conduction electron or local moment. Such a unique feature emphasizes the key role of the Kondo-screening-renormalized heavy quasi-particle for low-temperature/energy thermodynamics and transport behaviors. As an important application, the theoretical result is compared to an experimental measurement in heavy fermion superconductors CeCoIn5 and Yb-doped Ce1−x Yb x CoIn5 with fairly good agreement and the transition of the pairing symmetry in the latter material is explained as a simple doping effect. In addition, the requisite formalism for the commonly encountered nonmagnetic impurity and non-local electrodynamic effect are developed. Inspired by the success in explaining classic 115-series heavy fermion superconductors, we expect the present theory will be applied to understand other heavy fermion superconductors such as CeCu2Si2 and more generic multi-band superconductors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Interdisciplinary Studies & Key Laboratory for Magnetism and Magnetic Materials of the MoE, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Yin Zhong, Lan Zhang & Hong-Gang Luo

  2. Beijing Computational Science Research Center, Beijing, 100084, China

    Hong-Gang Luo

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  1. Yin Zhong
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  2. Lan Zhang
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  3. Can Shao
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  4. Hong-Gang Luo
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Correspondence to Yin Zhong or Hong-Gang Luo.

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arXiv: 1511.04167.

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Zhong, Y., Zhang, L., Shao, C. et al. Superfluid response in heavy fermion superconductors. Front. Phys. 12, 127101 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11467-016-0625-y

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