Vestigial Van Hove singularity and higher-temperature superconducting phase induced by perpendicular uniaxial pressures in quasi-two-dimensional superconductors

Abstract

We examine quasi-two-dimensional superconductors near half-filling under uniaxial pressures perpendicular to conductive layers (hereafter called perpendicular pressures). It is a natural conjecture that the perpendicular pressure decreases Tc because it increases the interlayer electron hopping energy t_z, which weakens the logarithmic enhancement in the density of states due to the two-dimensional Van Hove singularity. It is shown that, contrary to this conjecture, the perpendicular pressure can significantly enhance Tc in systems off half-filling before it decreases Tc, and the strength of the enhancement significantly depends on the pairing symmetry. When the indices d, d', cz, and sz are defined for the basis functions cos k_x - cos k_y, sin k_x sin k_y, cos k_z, and sin k_z, respectively, it is shown that for s-, d-, cz-, and cz-d-wave pairing, Tc steeply increases with increasing t_z near a cusp at a certain value of t_z. On the other hand, for p-, cz-p-, sz-p-, and d'-wave pairing, Tc is almost unaffected by tz. For sz- and sz-d-wave pairing, Tc exhibits a broad and weak peak. The enhancement in Tc is the largest for this state and the second largest for the d-wave pairing and interlayer singlet (cz-wave) pairing. These results may explain recent observations in Sr2RuO4 under perpendicular pressures. A comparison between the theoretical and experimental results indicates that the p-, cz-p-, and sz-p-wave states, including chiral states, and the d'-wave state are the most likely candidates for the intrinsic 1.5-K phase, and the d-, cz-d-, and cz-wave states are the most likely candidates for the 3-K phase induced by the perpendicular pressure. The cz-p- and sz-p-wave states are interlayer triplet and interlayer singlet p-wave states with horizontal line nodes, respectively.