Relativistic analysis of the pairing symmetry of the noncentrosymmetric superconductor LaNiC_{2}

Quintanilla, Jorge, Hillier, Adrian, Annett, James and Cywinski, R. (2010) Relativistic analysis of the pairing symmetry of the noncentrosymmetric superconductor LaNiC_{2}. Physical Review B, 82 (17). p. 174511. ISSN 1098-0121

Abstract

We present a relativistic symmetry analysis of the allowed pairing states in the noncentroymmetric superconductor LaNiC2. The case of zero spin-orbit coupling (SOC) is discussed first and then the evolution of the symmetry-allowed superconducting instabilities as SOC is adiabatically turned on is described. In addition to mixing singlet with triplet pairing, SOC splits some triplet pairing states with degenerate order-parameter spaces into nondegenerate pairing states with different critical temperatures. We address the breaking of time-reversal symmetry detected in recent muon spin-relaxation experiments and show that it is only compatible with such nonunitary triplet pairing states. In particular, an alternative scenario featuring conventional singlet pairing with a small admixture of triplet pairing is shown to be incompatible with the experimental data

Item control for Repository Staff only: