Crystal-symmetry-protected gapless vortex-line phases in superconducting Dirac semimetals

TL;DR

This paper classifies and demonstrates crystal-symmetry-protected gapless vortex-line phases in superconducting Dirac semimetals, revealing stable vortex bound states and potential Majorana zero modes influenced by symmetry and Fermi energy.

Contribution

It introduces a general classification scheme for gapless vortex-line phases in superconducting Dirac semimetals with rotation and inversion symmetry, supported by a tight-binding model.

Findings

Identification of three types of band crossing mechanisms for vortex bound states.

Demonstration of a gapless vortex-line phase with four Majorana zero modes.

Proposal of Nb$_3$Pt as a candidate material for hosting these phases.

Abstract

Vortex lines in superconducting Dirac semimetals realize crystal-symmetry-protected gapless vortex-line phases in which gapless excitations propagate inside a vortex line, in the presence of appropriate crystal symmetry, spin-orbit coupling, and multi-band structures. Here we present a general scheme to classify possible gapless vortex-line phases in superconducting Dirac semimetals with rotation (or screw) symmetry and inversion symmetry, assuming that the rotation (screw) axis is parallel to the vortex line. The rotation (screw)-symmetry-protected gapless modes are stable as long as they have different rotation (screw) eigenvalues. The underlying mechanism for the formation of gapless vortex bound states depends on irreducible representations of rotation (screw) symmetry subject to a vortex field and is classified into three types: (i) accidental band crossing of two vortex bound-state modes under rotation symmetry; (ii) accidental and (iii) enforced band crossing of four vortex bound-state modes under screw symmetry. We present a tight-binding model of screw-symmetry-protected Dirac semimetal with an $s$-wave pair potential, demonstrating a gapless vortex-line phase of type (ii). We obtain four gapless modes of vortex bound states whose gapless points (Majorana zero modes) pinned at a time-reversal invariant momentum (TRIM) when the Fermi energy is close to the Dirac points. As the Fermi energy is moved away from the Dirac points, the four gapless modes are split into a pair of two gapless modes with vanishing excitation energy at non-TRIMs. In closing, we discuss Nb$_3$Pt as a candidate material with the four-fold screw-symmetry-protected Dirac cones that can host a gapless vortex-line phase.