Magnetic-field-induced helical and stripe phases in Rashba superconductors

Abstract

Due to the lack of both parity and time-reversal symmetries, the Rashba superconductors CePt3Si, CeRhSi3, and CeIrSi3, in the presence of a magnetic field, are unstable to helical (single plane wave) order. We develop a microscopic theory for such superconductors and examine the stability of this helical phase. We show that the helical phase typically occupies most of the magnetic field–temperature phase diagram. However, we also find that this phase is sometimes unstable to a multiple-q phase (loosely called a stripe phase), in which both the magnitude and the phase of the order parameter are spatially varying. We find the position of this helical to multiple-q phase transition. We further examine the density of states and identify features unique to the helical phase.

Source-reported materials — not catalogue approval

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