Journal
PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS
Volume 119, Issue 5, Pages -Publisher
AMER PHYSICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.057603
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Funding
- Rutgers Center for Materials Theory group postdoc grant
- U.S. Department of Energy basic energy sciences [DE-FG02-99ER45790]
- National Science Foundation [PHY-1066293]
- U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Division of Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science [DE-ac02-98CH10886]
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Current theories of superfluidity are based on the idea of a coherent quantum state with topologically protected quantized circulation. When this topological protection is absent, as in the case of He-3-A, the coherent quantum state no longer supports persistent superflow. Here, we argue that the loss of topological protection in a superconductor gives rise to an insulating ground state. We specifically introduce the concept of a Skyrme insulator to describe the coherent dielectric state that results from the topological failure of superflow carried by a complex-vector order parameter. We apply this idea to the case of SmB6, arguing that the observation of a diamagnetic Fermi surface within an insulating bulk can be understood as a realization of this state. Our theory enables us to understand the linear specific heat of SmB6 in terms of a neutral Majorana Fermi sea and leads us to predict that in low fields of order a Gauss, SmB6 will develop a Meissner effect.
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