Topological Superconductivity in Two-Dimensional Altermagnetic Metals

TL;DR

This paper explores how altermagnetism in two-dimensional metals influences superconductivity, revealing the emergence of various topological superconducting phases, including second-order topological superconductors with Majorana corner modes.

Contribution

It demonstrates that altermagnetic order promotes mixed pairing states and enables the realization of both first- and second-order topological superconductors in 2D metals.

Findings

Altermagnetism favors spin-triplet p-wave pairing.

Multiple topological superconducting phases can emerge.

Second-order topological superconductor features Majorana corner modes.

Abstract

Bringing magnetic metals into superconducting states represents an important approach for realizing unconventional superconductors and potentially even topological superconductors. Altermagnetism, classified as a third basic collinear magnetic phase, gives rise to intriguing momentum-dependent spin-splitting of the band structure, and results in an even number of spin-polarized Fermi surfaces due to the symmetry-enforced zero net magnetization. In this work, we investigate the effect of this new magnetic order on the superconductivity of a two-dimensional metal with d-wave altermagnetism and Rashba spin-orbital coupling. Specifically we consider an extended attractive Hubbard interaction, and determine the types of superconducting pairing that can occur in this system and ascertain whether they possess topological properties. Through self-consistent mean-field calculations, we find that the system in general favors a mixture of spin-singlet s-wave and spin-triplet p-wave pairings, and that the altermagnetism is beneficial to the latter. Using symmetry arguments supported by detailed calculations, we show that a number of topological superconductors, including both first-order and second-order ones, can emerge when the p-wave pairing dominates. In particular, we find that the second-order topological superconductor is enforced by a $\mathcal{C}_{4z}\mathcal{T}$ symmetry, which renders the spin polarization of Majorana corner modes into a unique entangled structure. Our study demonstrates that altermagnetic metals are fascinating platforms for the exploration of intrinsic unconventional superconductivity and topological superconductivity.