Anomalous normal fluid response in a chiral superconductor UTe₂.

ABSTRACT: Chiral superconductors have been proposed as one pathway to realize Majorana normal fluid at its boundary. However, the long-sought 2D and 3D chiral superconductors with edge and surface Majorana normal fluid are yet to be conclusively found. Here, we report evidence for a chiral spin-triplet pairing state of UTe₂ with surface normal fluid response. The microwave surface impedance of the UTe₂ crystal was measured and converted to complex conductivity, which is sensitive to both normal and superfluid responses. The anomalous residual normal fluid conductivity supports the presence of a significant normal fluid response. The superfluid conductivity follows the temperature behavior predicted for an axial spin-triplet state, which is further narrowed down to a chiral spin-triplet state with evidence of broken time-reversal symmetry. Further analysis excludes trivial origins for the observed normal fluid response. Our findings suggest that UTe₂ can be a new platform to study exotic topological excitations in higher dimension.

SUBMITTER: Bae S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8113495 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature