Superconducting Correlations in the One-Dimensional Kondo Lattice Models under Magnetic Fields

TL;DR

This study investigates how superconducting correlations behave in one-dimensional Kondo lattice models with Ising anisotropy under transverse magnetic fields, revealing enhanced correlations near the Kondo-plateau phase for spin-1/2 but not for spin-1 models.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of superconducting correlations in anisotropic Kondo lattice models under transverse fields, highlighting the contrasting effects for spin-1/2 and spin-1 systems.

Findings

Superconducting correlations are highly enhanced near the Kondo-plateau phase in spin-1/2 models.

No significant superconducting enhancement is observed in spin-1 models with single-ion anisotropy.

Enhanced superconductivity is found inside the ferromagnetic phase at large Kondo exchange couplings.

Abstract

We analyze superconducting correlations in the one-dimensional Kondo lattice models with Ising anisotropy under transverse magnetic fields, using the density matrix renormalization group. For the spin-1/2 local spin model, the Ising anisotropy is introduced by the ferromagnetic Ising interaction between the local spins, while for the spin-1 model, it is taken by the single-ion anisotropy. The magnetic properties under the transverse fields for the spin-1/2 model are very similar to those for the spin-1 model [K. Suzuki and K. Hattori, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 88, 024707 (2019).]. For the superconducting correlations, we analyze various Cooper pairs within nearest-neighbor pairs including composite ones between the local spins and the electrons. We find that, for the spin-1/2 model, the superconducting correlations are highly enhanced in the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid state near the Kondo-plateau phase, where the conduction electrons and the local spins are strongly coupled with a finite spin gap for the Ising axis. This is a clear contrast to the model under the longitudinal magnetic fields, where there are no noticeable superconducting correlations. Competitions between the transverse magnetic field and the Kondo singlet formation lead to this enhanced superconducting correlations. For the spin-1 model, the single-ion anisotropy suppresses the superconducting correlation and there is no noticeable enhancement. We also examine the large Kondo exchange coupling limit. For the moderate ferromagnetic Ising interaction between the local spins, we find that another type of superconducting correlation is enhanced inside the ferromagnetic phase. We discuss a possible relation between our results and reentrant superconductivity in U-based ferromagnetic superconductors under transverse magnetic fields.