Topological superconductivity mediated by magnons of helical magnetic states

Kristian Mæland; Sara Abnar; Jacob Benestad; Asle Sudbø

doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.108.224515

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Topological superconductivity mediated by magnons of helical magnetic states

Kristian Mæland, Sara Abnar, Jacob Benestad, Asle Sudbø

DOI 10.1103/PhysRevB.108.224515 · Physical Review B

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Abstract

We recently showed that spin fluctuations of noncoplanar magnetic states can induce topological superconductivity in an adjacent normal metal [Mæland et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 156002 (2023)]. The noncolinear nature of the spins was found to be essential for this result, while the necessity of noncoplanar spins was unclear. In this paper we show that magnons in coplanar, noncolinear magnetic states can mediate topological superconductivity in a normal metal. Two models of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction are studied to illustrate the need for a sufficiently complicated Hamiltonian describing the magnetic insulator. The Hamiltonian, in particular the specific form of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, affects the magnons and by extension the effective electron-electron interaction in the normal metal. Symmetry arguments are applied to complement this discussion. We solve a linearized gap equation in the case of weak-coupling superconductivity. The result is a time-reversal-symmetric topological superconductor, as confirmed by calculating the topological invariant. In analogy with magnon-mediated superconductivity from antiferromagnets, Umklapp scattering enhances the critical temperature of superconductivity for certain Fermi momenta.