Classical phase fluctuations in d-wave superconductors

We study the effects of low-energy nodal quasiparticles on the classical phase fluctuations in a two-dimensional d-wave superconductor. The singularities of the phase-only action at T\to 0 are removed in the presence of disorder, which justifies using an extended classical XY-model to describe phase fluctuations at low temperatures.Comment: 14 pages, brief review for Mod. Phys. Lett.

Coexistence of Ferromagnetism and Superconductivity in Noncentrosymmetric Materials with Cubic Symmetry

This is a model study for the emergence of superconductivity in ferromagnetically ordered phases of cubic materials whose crystal structure lacks inversion symmetry. A Ginzburg-Landau-type theory is used to find the ferromagnetic state and to determine the coupling of magnetic order to superconductivity. It is found that noncentrosymmetricity evokes a helical magnetic phase. If the wavelength of the magnetic order is long enough, it gives rise to modulations of the order parameter of superconductivity, both in modulus and complex phase. At magnetic domain walls the nucleation of superconductivity is found to be suppressed as compared to the interior of ferromagnetic domains.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Non-Fraunhofer patterns of the anharmonic Josephson current influenced by a strong interfacial pair breaking

In the junctions with a strong Josephson coupling and a pronounced interfacial pair breaking, the magnetic interference patterns of the Josephson current are shown to differ substantially from the standard Fraunhofer shape. The Fraunhofer pattern occurs, when Josephson couplings are weak. The narrow peak of the critical current, centered at the zero magnetic field, and the suppressed hills at finite field values are the characteristic features of the non-Fraunhofer magnetic field modulation of the critical current, obtained in this paper.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Determining the superconducting gap structure in Sr2RuO4 from sound attenuation studies below Tc

This work presents a quantitative theoretical study of the sound attenuation in the unconventional multiband superconductor Sr2RuO4 below the superconducting transition temperature Tc. Sound attenuation in this material is shown to have the remarkable property of being able to identify different nodal structures on different bands. The nodal structures on the \gamma band on the one hand, and on the \alpha and \beta bands on the other, are both found to be characterized by the existence of point nodes, but are significantly different in their quantitative aspects.Comment: 7 pages, REVTe

Singular Modes of the Electromagnetic Field

We show that the mode corresponding to the point of essential spectrum of the electromagnetic scattering operator is a vector-valued distribution representing the square root of the three-dimensional Dirac's delta function. An explicit expression for this singular mode in terms of the Weyl sequence is provided and analyzed. An essential resonance thus leads to a perfect localization (confinement) of the electromagnetic field, which in practice, however, may result in complete absorption.Comment: 14 pages, no figure

Localized surface states in HTSC: Alternative mechanism of zero-bias conductance peaks

It is shown that the quasiparticle states localized in the vicinity of surface imperfections of atomic size can be responsible for the zero-bias tunneling conductance peaks in high-Tc superconductors. The contribution from these states can be easily separated from other mechanisms using their qualitatively different response on an external magnetic field.Comment: REVTeX, 4 pages, 2 figs; to be published in PR

Quantum fluctuations in Larkin-Ovchinnikov-Fulde-Ferrell superconductors

We study the superconducting order parameter fluctuations near the phase transition into the Larkin-Ovchinnikov-Fulde-Ferrell state in the clean limit at zero temperature. In contrast to the usual normal metal-to-uniform superconductor phase transition, the fluctuation corrections are dominated by the modes with the wave vectors away from the origin. We find that the superconducting fluctuations lead to a divergent spin susceptibility and a breakdown of the Fermi-liquid behavior at the quantum critical point.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Effect of disorder on the NMR relaxation rate in two-band superconductors

We calculate the effect of nonmagnetic impurity scattering on the spin-lattice relaxation rate in two-band superconductors with the s-wave pairing symmetry. It is found that for the interaction parameters appropriate for MgB2 the Hebel-Slichter peak is suppressed by disorder in the limit of small interband impurity scattering rate. In the limit of strong impurity scattering, when the gap functions in the two bands become nearly equal, the single-band behavior is recovered with a well-defined coherence peak just below the transition temperature.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Anisotropy in the helicity modulus of a quantum 3D XY-model: application to YBCO

We present a variational study of the helicity moduli of an anisotropic quantum three-dimensional (3D) XY-model of YBCO in superconducting state. It is found that both the ab-plane and the c-axis helicity moduli, which are proportional to the inverse square of the corresponding magnetic field penetration depth, vary with temperature T as T to the fourth power in the zero temperature limit. Moreover, the c-axis helicity modulus drops with temperature much faster than the ab-plane helicity modulus because of the weaker Josephson couplings along the c-axis compared to those along the ab-plane. These findings are in disagreement with the experiments on high quality samples of YBCO.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur