Nodal s-wave superconductivity in antiferromagnetic semimetals

Abstract

We investigate the impact of s-wave spin-singlet pairing on antiferromagnetic semimetals with Dirac points or nodal loops at the Fermi level. The electron pairing is generally shown to convert the semimetal into a tunable nodal superconductor. The changeover from fully gapped to gapless phases is dictated by symmetry properties of the antiferromagnetic-superconducting state that set the occurrence of a large variety of electronic topological transitions. We provide a general criterion for predicting a series of transitions between nodal and fully gapped superconducting phases. Different types of antiferromagnetic patterns are then employed to explicitly demonstrate the microscopic mechanisms that control the character of the quasiparticle spectrum. These findings unveil an unconventional type of nodal superconductivity emerging from the interplay of Dirac fermions and conventional forms of ordering.

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