English
 
Help Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Released

Journal Article

Momentum space imaging of the FFLO state

MPS-Authors
/persons/resource/persons126879

Thalmeier,  Peter
Peter Thalmeier, Physics of Correlated Matter, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Max Planck Society;

External Resource
No external resources are shared
Fulltext (restricted access)
There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.
Fulltext (public)
There are no public fulltexts stored in PuRe
Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Akbari, A., & Thalmeier, P. (2016). Momentum space imaging of the FFLO state. New Journal of Physics, 18: 063030, pp. 1-12. doi:10.1088/1367-2630/18/6/063030.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-002B-246C-B
Abstract
In a magnetic field superconductors (SC) with small orbital effect exhibit the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) phase above the Pauli limiting field. It is characterized by Cooper pairs with finite center of mass momentum and is stabilized by the gain in Zeeman energy of depaired electrons in the imbalanced Fermi gas. The ground state is a coherent superposition of paired and depaired states. This concept, although central to the FFLO state lacks a direct experimental confirmation. We propose that STM quasiparticle interference (QPI) can give a direct momentum space image of the depaired states in the FFLO wave function. For a proof of principle we investigate a 2D single orbital tight binding model with a SC s-wave order parameter. Using the equilibrium values of pair momentum and SC gap we calculate the spectral function of quasiparticles and associated QPI spectrum as function of magnetic field. We show that the characteristic depaired Fermi surface parts appear as a fingerprint in the QPI spectrum of the FFLO phase and we demonstrate its evolution with field strength. Its observation in STM experiments would constitute a direct proof for FFLO ground state wave function.