Impurity Effect on Kramer-Pesch Core Shrinkage in s-Wave Vortex and Chiral p-Wave Vortex

TL;DR

This study investigates how nonmagnetic impurities affect the vortex core shrinkage (Kramer-Pesch effect) in s-wave and chiral p-wave superconductors, revealing robustness in p-wave phases and sensitivity in s-wave phases.

Contribution

It provides a numerical analysis of impurity effects on the Kramer-Pesch effect in different superconducting phases using a quasiclassical approach.

Findings

Chiral p-wave vortex cores are robust against impurities.

s-wave vortex cores are sensitive to impurity scattering.

Chiral p-wave superconductors are promising for observing the Kramer-Pesch effect.

Abstract

The low-temperature shrinking of the vortex core (Kramer-Pesch effect) is studied for an isolated single vortex for chiral p-wave and s-wave superconducting phases. The effect of nonmagnetic impurities on the vortex core radius is numerically investigated in the Born limit by means of a quasiclassical approach. It is shown that in the chiral p-wave phase the Kramer-Pesch effect displays a certain robustness against impurities owing to a specific quantum effect, while the s-wave phase reacts more sensitively to impurity scattering. This suggests chiral p-wave superconductors as promising candidates for the experimental observation of the Kramer-Pesch effect.