Spin fluctuations and superconductivity in noncentrosymmetric heavy fermion systems CeRhSi$_3$ and CeIrSi$_3$

TL;DR

This paper investigates the normal and superconducting behaviors of CeRhSi3 and CeIrSi3, revealing how spin fluctuations and spin-orbit interactions near a quantum critical point explain their high critical fields and anisotropic properties.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive theoretical framework linking spin fluctuations, spin-orbit coupling, and superconductivity in noncentrosymmetric heavy fermion systems, including a formula for the upper critical field.

Findings

Normal state resistivity explained by antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations.

High upper critical fields and anisotropy are understood through spin-orbit interactions.

Robustness of results against spin-flip scattering and magnetic field effects.

Abstract

We study the normal and the superconducting properties in noncentrosymmetric heavy fermion superconductors CeRhSi$_3$ and CeIrSi$_3$. For the normal state, we show that experimentally observed linear temperature dependence of the resistivity is understood through the antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations near the quantum critical point (QCP) in three dimensions. For the superconducting state, we derive a general formula to calculate the upper critical field $H_{c2}$, with which we can treat the Pauli and the orbital depairing effect on an equal footing. The strong coupling effect for general electronic structures is also taken into account. We show that the experimentally observed features in $H_{c2}\parallel \hat{z}$, the huge value up to 30(T), the downward curvatures, and the strong pressure dependence, are naturally understood as an interplay of the Rashba spin-orbit interaction due to the lack of inversion symmetry and the spin fluctuations near the QCP. The large anisotropy between $H_{c2}\parallel \hat{z}$ and $H_{c2}\perp \hat{z}$ is explained in terms of the spin-orbit interaction. Furthermore, a possible realization of the Fulde-Ferrell- Larkin-Ovchinnikov state for $H\perp \hat{z}$ is studied. We also examine effects of spin-flip scattering processes in the pairing interaction and those of the applied magnetic field on the spin fluctuations. We find that the above mentioned results are robust against these effects. The consistency of our results strongly supports the scenario that the superconductivity in CeRhSi$_3$ and CeIrSi$_3$ is mediated by the spin fluctuations near the QCP.