Department of Physics, Quantum Materials Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA.
Science. 2021 Aug 13;373(6556):797-801. doi: 10.1126/science.abb0272. Epub 2021 Jul 15.
An unconventional superconducting state was recently discovered in uranium ditelluride (UTe), in which spin-triplet superconductivity emerges from the paramagnetic normal state of a heavy-fermion material. The coexistence of magnetic fluctuations and superconductivity, together with the crystal structure of this material, suggests that a distinctive set of symmetries, magnetic properties, and topology underlie the superconducting state. Here, we report observations of a nonzero polar Kerr effect and of two transitions in the specific heat upon entering the superconducting state, which together suggest that the superconductivity in UTe is characterized by a two-component order parameter that breaks time-reversal symmetry. These data place constraints on the symmetries of the order parameter and inform the discussion on the presence of topological superconductivity in UTe.
最近在铀碲化物(UTe)中发现了一种非传统的超导态,其中自旋三重态超导态源自重费米子材料的顺磁正常态。这种材料的磁涨落和超导性共存,以及其晶体结构表明,超导态具有独特的对称性、磁性质和拓扑结构。在这里,我们报告了在进入超导态时观察到的非零的偏振克尔效应和比热的两个跃迁,这共同表明 UTe 中的超导性具有破坏时间反演对称性的两分量序参量。这些数据对序参量的对称性施加了限制,并为 UTe 中拓扑超导性的存在提供了信息。