Gapless Magnetic and Quasiparticle Excitations due to the Coexistence of Antiferromagnetism and Superconductivity in CeRhIn5_5 : A study of 115^{115}In-NQR under Pressure

We report systematic measurements of ac-susceptibility, nuclear-quadrupole-resonance spectrum, and nuclear-spin-lattice-relaxation time ($T_1$) on the pressure ($P$)- induced heavy-fermion (HF) superconductor CeRhIn$_5$. The temperature ($T$) dependence of $1/T_1$ at $P$ = 1.6 GPa has revealed that antiferromagnetism (AFM) and superconductivity (SC) coexist microscopically, exhibiting the respective transition at $T_N = 2.8$ K and $T^{MF}_c$ = 0.9 K. It is demonstrated that SC does not yield any trace of gap opening in low-lying excitations below $T_c^{onset} = 2$ K, but $T_c^{MF} = 0.9$ K, followed by a $T_1T$ = const law. These results point to the unconventional characteristics of SC coexisting with AFM. We highlight that both of the results deserve theoretical work on the gapless nature in low-lying excitation spectrum due to the coexistence of AFM and SC and the lack of the mean-field regime below $T_c^{onset} = 2$ K.Comment: 4pages,5figures,revised versio

Emergent states in heavy electron materials

We obtain the conditions necessary for the emergence of various low temperature ordered states (local moment antiferromagnetism, unconventional superconductivity, quantum criticality, and Landau Fermi liquid behavior) in Kondo lattice materials by extending the two-fluid phenomenological theory of heavy electron behavior to incorporate the concept of hybridization effectiveness. We use this expanded framework to present a new phase digram and consistent physical explanation and quantitative description of measured emergent behaviors such as the pressure variation of the onset of local moment antiferromagnetic ordering at T_N, the magnitude of the ordered moment, the growth of superconductivity within that ordered state, the location of a quantum critical point, and of a delocalization line in the pressure/temperature phase diagram at which local moments have disappeared and the heavy electron Fermi surface has grown to its maximum size. We apply our model to CeRhIn_5 and a number of other heavy electron materials and find good agreement with experiment.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl