Heat transport and the nature of the order parameter in superconducting UPt3

Surface State Tunneling Signatures in the Two-Component Superconductor UPt_{3}

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 simultaneously gives extended bulk states and topologically protected in-gap dispersionless surface states. We show that the number of Weyl arcs and their hybridization with the line node provides a fingerprint that may finally determine the true nodal structure of the UPt_{3} superconductor.

Evidence for complex superconducting order parameter symmetry in the low-temperature phase of UPt3 from Josephson interferometry

We present data on the modulation of the critical current with applied magnetic field in UPt3-Cu-Pb Josephson junctions and SQUIDs. The junctions were fabricated on polished surfaces of UPt3 single crystals. The shape of the resulting diffraction patterns provides phase-sensitive information on the superconducting order parameter. Our corner junction data show asymmetric patterns with respect to magnetic field, indicating a complex order parameter, and both our junction and SQUID measurements point to a phase shift of pi, supporting the E(2u) representation of the order parameter.

Theory of the transition at 0.2 K in Ni-doped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8

A theory is put forward that the electronic phase transition at 0.2 K in Ni-doped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 is a result of the formation of a spin density wave in the system of Ni impurities. The driving force for the transition is the exchange interaction between the impurity spins and the spins of the conduction electrons. This creates a small gap at two of the four nodes of the superconducting gap. The effect is to reduce the thermal conductivity by a factor of 2, as observed.