Deciphering Chiral Superconductivity via Impurity Bound States

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Cai, Yuchang, Zhang, Rui-Xing
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Cai, Yuchang
Zhang, Rui-Xing
author_facet Cai, Yuchang
Zhang, Rui-Xing
contents Determining the symmetry of Cooper pairs remains a central challenge in the study of unconventional superconductors, particularly for chiral states that spontaneously break time-reversal symmetry. Here we demonstrate that point-like impurities in chiral superconductors generate in-gap bound states with a distinctive asymmetry: the local density of states at the impurity site vanishes at one bound-state energy, but not at its particle-hole conjugate. We prove this behavior analytically in generic two-dimensional, single-band chiral superconductors, showing it arises from a fundamental interplay between pairing chirality and crystalline rotation symmetry. Our numerical simulations confirm that this diagnostic feature persists in multiband systems and for spatially extended impurities. Our results establish a symmetry-enforced real-space diagnostic for chiral superconductivity at the atomic scale.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_20842
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Deciphering Chiral Superconductivity via Impurity Bound States
Cai, Yuchang
Zhang, Rui-Xing
Superconductivity
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Strongly Correlated Electrons
Determining the symmetry of Cooper pairs remains a central challenge in the study of unconventional superconductors, particularly for chiral states that spontaneously break time-reversal symmetry. Here we demonstrate that point-like impurities in chiral superconductors generate in-gap bound states with a distinctive asymmetry: the local density of states at the impurity site vanishes at one bound-state energy, but not at its particle-hole conjugate. We prove this behavior analytically in generic two-dimensional, single-band chiral superconductors, showing it arises from a fundamental interplay between pairing chirality and crystalline rotation symmetry. Our numerical simulations confirm that this diagnostic feature persists in multiband systems and for spatially extended impurities. Our results establish a symmetry-enforced real-space diagnostic for chiral superconductivity at the atomic scale.
title Deciphering Chiral Superconductivity via Impurity Bound States
topic Superconductivity
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Strongly Correlated Electrons
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.20842