Rise and fall of Yu-Shiba-Rusinov bound-states in charge conserving $s$-wave one-dimensional superconductors

TL;DR

This paper investigates how quantum fluctuations affect Yu-Shiba-Rusinov bound states in a one-dimensional charge conserving superconductor with a magnetic impurity, revealing their destruction over most of the phase diagram.

Contribution

It provides an exact Bethe Ansatz analysis showing quantum fluctuations suppress YSR states except in a narrow regime, highlighting new phases and transitions.

Findings

YSR states are destroyed over most of the phase diagram due to quantum fluctuations.

A small YSR regime exists between Kondo-screened and unscreened phases.

A renormalized Kondo regime without YSR states emerges at large impurity coupling.

Abstract

We re-examine the problem of a magnetic impurity coupled to a superconductor focusing on the role of quantum fluctuations. We study in detail, a system that consists of a one-dimensional charge conserving spin-singlet superconductor coupled to a boundary magnetic impurity. Our main finding is that quantum fluctuations lead to the destruction of Yu-Shiba-Rusinov (YSR) intra-gap bound-states in all but a narrow region of the phase diagram. We carry out our analysis in three stages, increasing the role of the quantum fluctuations at each stage. First we consider the limit of a classical impurity and study the bulk semiclassically, finding YSR states throughout the phase diagram, a situation similar to conventional BCS superconductors. In the second stage, we reintroduce quantum fluctuations in the bulk and find that the YSR state is suppressed over half of the phase diagram, existing only around the quantum critical point separating the unscreened and the partially screened phases. In the final stage we solve exactly the full interacting model with arbitrary coupling constants using Bethe Ansatz. We find that including both the quantum fluctuating bulk and quantum impurity destabilizes the YSR state over most of the phase diagram allowing it to exist only in a small region, the YSR regime, between a Kondo-screened and an unscreened regime. Within the YSR regime a first order phase transition occurs between a spin singlet and doublet ground state. We also find that for large enough impurity spin exchange interaction a renormalized Kondo-screened regime is established. In this regime, not found for BCS superconductors, there is no YSR state and a renormalized Kondo temperature scale is generated.