Nontrivial interplay between superconductivity and spin-orbit coupling in non-centrosymmetric ferromagnets

Abstract

Motivated by the recent discoveries of ferromagnetic and non-centrosymmetric superconductors, we present a mean-field theory for a superconductor that \textit{both} lacks inversion symmetry and displays ferromagnetism, a scenario which is believed to be realized in UIr. We study the interplay between the order parameters to clarify how superconductivity is affected by the presence of ferromagnetism and spin-orbit coupling. One of our key findings is that the spin-orbit coupling seems to enhance both ferromagnetism and superconductivity in all spin channels. We discuss our results in the context of the heavy fermion superconductor UIr and analyze possible symmetries of the order parameter by the group theory method.

4 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B

References in corpus (6)

• Superconductivity on the border of weak itinerant ferromagnetism in UCoGe
• Order parameter in superconductors with non-degenerate bands
• Andreev bound states and tunneling characteristics of a non-centrosymmetric superconductor
• Quantum transport in noncentrosymmetric superconductors and thermodynamics of ferromagnetic superconductors
• Tunnelling between non-centrosymmetric superconductors with significant spin-orbit splitting studied theoretically within a two-band treatment
• Coexistence of ferromagnetism and superconductivity near quantum phase transition: The Heisenberg- to Ising-type crossover