Surface state tunneling signatures in two-component superconductor UPt${}_3$

Abstract

Quasiparticle interference (QPI) imaging of Bogoliubov excitations in quasi-two dimensional unconventional superconductors has become a powerful technique for measuring the superconducting gap and its symmetry. Here, we present the extension of this method to three-dimensional superconductors and analyze the expected QPI spectrum for the two-component heavy fermion superconductor UPt${}_3$ whose gap structure is still controversial. Starting from a 3D electronic structure and the three proposed chiral gap models $E_{1g,u}$ or $E_{2u}$, we perform a slab calculation that determines the 2D continuum Bogoliubov- de Gennes (BdG) surface quasiparticle bands and in addition the in-gap flat-band Andreev bound states that lead to surface Weyl arcs connecting the projected gap nodes. Both features are very distinct for the three models, in particular the most prominent $E_{2u}$ candidate is singled out by the existence of {\it two} Weyl arcs due to the double monopole node points. The signature of these distinct surface bound and continuum states that is left in QPI is derived and discussed. We show that it provides a fingerprint that may finally determine the true nodal structure of UPt${}_3$ superconductor.

6 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (8)

• The Order Parameter for the Superconducting Phases of UPt${}_3$
• Observation of broken time-reversal symmetry in the heavy fermion superconductor UPt${}_3$
• Topological Blount's theorem of odd-parity superconductors
• Topologically stable gapless phases in nonsymmorphic superconductors
• Direct Evidence for a Magnetic f-electron Mediated Cooper Pairing Mechanism of Heavy Fermion Superconductivity in CeCoIn5
• Exotic multi-gap structure in UPt${}_3$ unveiled by the first-priniciples analysis
• The Fermi surface and f-valence electron count of UPt3
• Anomalous Field-Angle Dependence of the Specific Heat of Heavy-Fermion Superconductor UPt3

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Theory of surface Andreev bound states and tunneling spectroscopy in three-dimensional chiral superconductors