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Refined symmetry indicators for topological superconductors in all space groups

Seishiro Ono, Hoi Chun Po, Haruki Watanabe

2020Science Advances101 citationsDOIOpen Access PDF

Abstract

Topological superconductors are exotic phases of matter featuring robust surface states that could be leveraged for topological quantum computation. A useful guiding principle for the search of topological superconductors is to relate the topological invariants with the behavior of the pairing order parameter on the normal-state Fermi surfaces. The existing formulas, however, become inadequate for the prediction of the recently proposed classes of topological crystalline superconductors. In this work, we advance the theory of symmetry indicators for topological (crystalline) superconductors to cover all space groups. Our main result is the exhaustive computation of the indicator groups for superconductors under a variety of symmetry settings. We further illustrate the power of this approach by analyzing fourfold symmetric superconductors with or without inversion symmetry and show that the indicators can diagnose topological superconductors with surface states of different dimensionalities or dictate gaplessness in the bulk excitation spectrum.

Topics & Concepts

SuperconductivityTopology (electrical circuits)PhysicsSymmetry (geometry)PairingSymmetry protected topological orderPoint reflectionTheoretical physicsTopological degeneracyTopological orderTopological entropy in physicsSurface (topology)Cover (algebra)Topological defectFermi surfaceSpace (punctuation)Surface statesQuantum computerZero-dimensional spaceQuantumQuantum mechanicsParameter spaceSymmetry groupFermi levelComputationGlobal symmetryFermi Gamma-ray Space TelescopeExcitationGroup (periodic table)State of matterInversion (geology)Topological quantum numberCondensed matter physicsTopological Materials and PhenomenaPhysics of Superconductivity and MagnetismSuperconductivity in MgB2 and Alloys
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