Monday, February 25, 2013

1302.5610 (Emiko Arahata et al.)

Spin Currents and Spontaneous Magnetization at Twin Boundaries of
Noncentrosymmetric Superconductors
   [PDF]

Emiko Arahata, Titus Neupert, Manfred Sigrist
Twin boundaries are generic crystalline defects in noncentrosymmetric crystal structures. We study theoretically twin boundaries in time-reversal symmetric noncentrosymmetric superconductors that admit parity-mixed Cooper pairing. Twin boundaries support spin currents as a consequence of this parity mixing. If the singlet and triplet components of the superconducting order parameter are of comparable magnitude, the superconducting state breaks spontaneously the bulk time-reversal symmetry locally near the twin boundary. By self-consistently evaluating the Bogoliubov-de-Gennes equations and the gap functions we find two distinct phases: First, time-reversal symmetry breaking enhances the spin currents but does not lead to chiral supercurrents. A secondary phase transition then triggers a spin magnetization and an orbital supercurrent near the twin boundary.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.5610

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