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Thomas Bernat

Publications and source records attributed to Thomas Bernat.

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Composite quantum geometry of superconductors

The interplay of superconductivity and the quantum geometry of the normal state has recently been the subject of an array of studies, especially regarding the superfluid weight. In this work, we turn our attention to the quantum geometry of the superconducting state itself, set by the Bogoliubov-de Gennes (BdG) Hamiltonian, which dictates the geometric and topological properties of superconductivity. We show that under three general conditions, namely superconducting fitness, orbital uniformity of the superconducting pairing, and absence of normal-state spin-flip terms, the BdG quantum geometry exactly separates into a sum of the normal-state quantum geometry and an additional pairing quantum geometry, thereby displaying a simple composite structure. We show that this separation holds for all spin-singlet and -triplet pairings, including nonunitary spin-triplet pairing. We further provide explicit analytical formulas for the pairing quantum geometry for all these cases. These results establish how superconducting pairing alone easily drives both topology and a finite quantum metric, thus being present even in topological trivial or flat band superconductors, with no normal state quantum geometry. To complement these results, we also derive the BdG quantum geometry of a general two-orbital spin-singlet superconductor with non-uniform pairing and finite superconducting fitness. Here, our explicit analytical results establish a non-separable composite BdG quantum geometry, with the normal state and pairing contributions generally intertwining, thereby producing even more possibilities for finite quantum geometry. Our results provide design rules for creating superconductors and superconducting hybrid structures with nontrivial topology and finite quantum metric and will additionally help in the experimental diagnosis of unconventional superconductivity.

cond-mat.supr-con

Paramagnetic limit of spin-triplet superconductors

We study the phase diagram of spin-triplet superconductors, considering the effect of the external magnetic field on the electrons' spins. For a given symmetry of the order parameter and a generic orientation of the field, we find that the paramagnetic limit for superconductivity diverges at low temperatures. Furthermore, we identify a range of temperatures where the transition between normal and superconducting phases becomes of the first order. When two tricritical points exist along the transition line, a first order phase transition between two superconducting phases may develop in vicinity of the tricritical point with lower temperature. We discuss the implications of our findings for the anisotropy of the upper critical field in UPt$_3$, a candidate material for triplet superconductivity, when both the paramagnetic and orbital effects are taken into account.

cond-mat.supr-con

Spin susceptibility of nonunitary spin-triplet superconductors

The spin susceptibility is an important probe to characterize the symmetry of the order parameter in unconventional superconductors. Among them, nonunitary triplet superconductors have attracted a lot of attention recently in the context of the search for topological superconductivity. Here, we derive a general formula for the spin susceptibility of nonunitary triplet superconductors within a single-band model of non-magnetic, centrosymmetric materials with strong spin-orbit coupling. We use it to critically assess experimental claims of nonunitary triplet superconductivity in some materials.

cond-mat.supr-con