A Superconducting instability in the surface of a topological insulator

TL;DR

This paper predicts a p-wave superconducting instability on the surface of a topological insulator driven solely by electromagnetic interactions, with an estimated critical temperature, assuming a 2D Fermi liquid behavior.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism for surface superconductivity in topological insulators via electromagnetic interactions, analyzing Coulomb effects and providing a critical temperature expression.

Findings

Superconducting instability occurs in the p-wave channel.

The instability arises purely from electromagnetic interactions.

An expression for the critical temperature is derived.

Abstract

It is argued that a superconducting instability appears in the electronic states on the surface of a topological insulator due purely to electromagnetic interactions. The discussion of this instability is based on the analysis of the effective Coulomb interaction and the assumption that the system behaves like a two dimensional Fermi liquid. It is shown that this superconducting instability appears in the p-wave channel (like in the pure QED$_{3}$ case) and an expression for the critical temperature of the transition is provided.