Spectral form factors of unconventional superconductors

Abstract

We show that spectral form factors of unconventional gapped superconductors have singularities occurring periodically in time. These are the superconductors whose gap function vanishes somewhere in momentum space (Brillouin zone) but whose fermionic excitation spectrum is fully gapped. Many, although not all, of these superconductors are topologically nontrivial. In contrast, conventional fully gapped superconductors have featureless spectral form factors which are analytic in time. Some gapless superconductors may also have singularities in their spectral form factors, but they are not as ubiquitous and their appearance may depend on the details of the interactions among fermionic particles which form the superconductor and on the underlying lattice where the particles move. This work builds on the prior publication [S. Gaur, V. Gurarie, and E. A. Yuzbashyan, Phys. Rev. B 106, L220506 (2022)] where Loschmidt echo of topological superconductors, related but not identical to spectral form factors, was studied. It follows that spectral form factors could be used as a test of the structure of the superconducting gap functions.

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