NMR relaxation rate in non-centrosymmetric superconductors

The spin-lattice relaxation rate of nuclear magnetic resonance in a clean superconductor without inversion center is calculated for arbitrary pairing symmetry and band structure, in the presence of strong spin-orbit coupling.Comment: 4 page

Signature of superconducting states in cubic crystal without inversion symmetry

The effects of absence of inversion symmetry on superconducting states are investigated theoretically. In particular we focus on the noncentrosymmetric compounds which have the cubic symmetry $O$ like Li$_2$Pt$_3$B. An appropriate and isotropic spin-orbital interaction is added in the Hamiltonian and it acts like a magnetic monopole in the momentum space. The consequent pairing wavefunction has an additional triplet component in the pseudospin space, and a Zeeman magnetic field $\bf{B}$ can induce a collinear supercurrent $\bf{J}$ with a coefficient $\kappa(T)$. The effects of anisotropy embedded in the cubic symmetry and the nodal superconducting gap function on $\kappa(T)$ are also considered. From the macroscopic perspectives, the pair of mutually induced $\bf{J}$ and magnetization ${\bf{M}}$ can affect the distribution of magnetic field in such noncentrosymmetric superconductors, which is studied through solving the Maxwell equation in the Meissner geometry as well as the case of a single vortex line. In both cases, magnetic fields perpendicular to the external ones emerge as a signature of the broken symmetry.Comment: 16 pages in pre-print forma

Phases of dual superconductivity and confinement in softly broken N=2 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories

We study the electric flux tubes that undertake color confinement in N=2 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories softly broken down to N=1 by perturbing with the first two Casimir operators. The relevant Abelian Higgs model is not the standard one due to the presence of an off-diagonal coupling among different magnetic U(1) factors. We perform a preliminary study of this model at a qualitative level. BPS vortices are explicitely obtained for particular values of the soft breaking parameters. Generically however, even in the ultrastrong scaling limit, vortices are not critical but live in a "hybrid" type II phase. Also, ratios among string tensions are seen to follow no simple pattern. We examine the situation at the half Higgsed vacua and find evidence for solutions with the behaviour of superconducting strings. In some cases they are solutions to BPS equations.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure, revtex; v2: typos corrected, final versio

On the spin susceptibility of noncentrosymmetric superconductors

We calculate the spin susceptibility of a superconductor without inversion symmetry, both in the clean and disordered cases. The susceptibility has a large residual value at zero temperature, which is further enhanced in the presence of scalar impurities.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure

Supersymmetric Electroweak Cosmic Strings

We study the connection between $N=2$ supersymmetry and a topological bound in a two-Higgs-doublet system with an $SU(2)\times U(1)_Y\times U(1)_{Y^{\prime}}$ gauge group. We derive the Bogomol'nyi equations from supersymmetry considerations showing that they hold provided certain conditions on the coupling constants, which are a consequence of the huge symmetry of the theory, are satisfied. Their solutions, which can be interpreted as electroweak cosmic strings breaking one half of the supersymmetries of the theory, are studied. Certain interesting limiting cases of our model which have recently been considered in the literature are finally analyzed.Comment: 20 pages, RevTe

Holography and Unquenched Quark-Gluon Plasmas

We employ the string/gauge theory correspondence to study properties of strongly coupled quark-gluon plasmas in thermal gauge theories with a large number of colors and flavors. In particular, we analyze non-critical string duals of conformal (S)QCD, as well as ten dimensional wrapped fivebrane duals of SQCD-like theories. We study general properties of the dual plasmas, including the drag force exerted on a probe quark and the jet quenching parameter. We find that these plasma observables depend on the number of colors and flavors in the ``QCD dual''; in particular, we find that the jet quenching parameter increases linearly with N_f/N_c at leading order in the probe limit. In the ten dimensional case we find a non trivial drag coefficient but a vanishing jet quenching parameter. We comment on the relation of this result with total screening and argue that the same features are shared by all known plasmas dual to fivebranes in ten dimensions. We also construct new D5 black hole solutions with spherical horizon and show that they exhibit the same features.Comment: 30 pages. v2: Comments in section 2 and references updated, a typo fixe

Topological quantum field theory and four-manifolds

I review some recent results on four-manifold invariants which have been obtained in the context of topological quantum field theory. I focus on three different aspects: (a) the computation of correlation functions, which give explicit results for the Donaldson invariants of non-simply connected manifolds, and for generalizations of these invariants to the gauge group SU(N); (b) compactifications to lower dimensions, and relations with three-manifold topology and with intersection theory on the moduli space of flat connections on Riemann surfaces; (c) four-dimensional theories with critical behavior, which give some remarkable constraints on Seiberg-Witten invariants and new results on the geography of four-manifolds.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX. Talk given at the 3rd ECM, Barcelona, July 2000; references adde

Helical vortex phase in the non-centrosymmetric CePt_3Si

We consider the role of magnetic fields on the broken inversion superconductor CePt_3Si. We show that upper critical field for a field along the c-axis exhibits a much weaker paramagnetic effect than for a field applied perpendicular to the c-axis. The in-plane paramagnetic effect is strongly reduced by the appearance of helical structure in the order parameter. We find that to get good agreement between theory and recent experimental measurements of H_{c2}, this helical structure is required. We propose a Josephson junction experiment that can be used to detect this helical order. In particular, we predict that Josephson current will exhibit a magnetic interference pattern for a magnetic field applied perpendicular to the junction normal. We also discuss unusual magnetic effects associated with the helical order.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, Accepted as Phys Rev. Lette

Effects of impurities on Hc2(T) in superconductors without inversion symmetry

We calculate the upper critical field, Hc2(T), due to the orbital pair breaking in disordered superconductors without inversion symmetry. Differences from the usual centrosymmetric case are highlighted. The linearized gap equations in magnetic field, with the singlet and triplet pairing channels mixed by impurity scattering, are solved exactly for a cubic crystal.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur