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arXiv · 1210.8282

Magnetic Intragap States and Mixed Parity Pairing at the Edge of Spin-Triplet Superconductors

Alfonso Romano·Paola Gentile·Canio Noce·Ilya Vekhter·Mario Cuoco
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Abstract

We show that a spontaneous magnetic moment may appear at the edge of a spin-triplet superconductor if the system allows for pairing in a subdominant channel. To unveil the microscopic mechanism behind such effect we combine numerical solution of the Bogoliubov-De Gennes equations for a tight-binding model with nearest-neighbor attraction, and the symmetry based Ginzburg-Landau approach. We find that a potential barrier modulating the electronic density near the edge of the system leads to a non-unitary superconducting state close to the boundary where spin-singlet pairing coexists with the dominant triplet superconducting order. We demonstrate that the spin polarization at the edge appears due to the inhomogeneity of the non-unitary state and originates in the lifting of the spin-degeneracy of the Andreev bound-states.

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Alfonso Romano, Paola Gentile, Canio Noce, Ilya Vekhter, Mario Cuoco. 2012-10-31. Magnetic Intragap States and Mixed Parity Pairing at the Edge of Spin-Triplet Superconductors. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.110.267002

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