Quantitative thermodynamic study of superconducting and normal states in UTe2 under pressure

TL;DR

This study provides a detailed calorimetric analysis of UTe2 under pressure, revealing a threefold increase in electronic effective mass near the critical pressure where superconductivity is suppressed, highlighting the role of a quantum critical point.

Contribution

It offers the first quantitative calorimetric measurement of the Sommerfeld gamma coefficient in UTe2 under pressure, linking electronic mass enhancement to superconductivity suppression and phase evolution.

Findings

Electronic effective mass triples near critical pressure.

Superconducting phase nucleates on a fraction of the Fermi surface.

Specific heat jumps increase near the antiferromagnetic boundary.

Abstract

We report a quantitative calorimetric study of UTe2 under pressure with a direct measurement of the Sommerfeld gamma coefficient, showing a three-fold enhancement of electronic effective mass when approaching the critical pressure where superconductivity is suppressed and ordered states occur. We analyse the evolution of gamma with the amplitude of the jumps in the specific heat at the two superconducting transitions, and the superconducting critical temperature with pressure. This analysis would suggest that the high pressure superconducting phase nucleates only on a fraction of the Fermi surface. It also points to the possible major role of a quantum critical point of the unidentified phase that has been called weak magnetic order, rather than to the critical pressure of the antiferromagnetic phase. Just at the border of long-range antiferromagnetic order, where superconductivity emerges from the weak magnetic order phase, a significant increase in the specific heat jump for both superconducting transitions is found, accompanied by a noticeable change of their shapes.