Kondo screening cloud in a superconductor with mixed s-wave and p-wave pairing states

We study the Kondo screening of a spin-1/2 magnetic impurity coupled to a superconductor, which is fabricated by combination of an s-wave superconductor, a ferromagnet and a semiconductor with Rashba spin—orbit coupling (RSOC). The proximity induced superconducting states include the s-wave and p-wave pairing components with the aids of RSOC, and the ferromagnet induces a Zeeman field which removes the spin degeneracy of the quasiparticles in the triplet states. Thus, the Kondo screening of magnetic impurity involves the orbital degrees of freedom, and is also affected by the Zeeman field. Using the variational method, we calculate the binding energy and the spin—spin correlation between the magnetic impurity and the electrons in the coexisting s-wave and p-wave pairing states. We find that Kondo singlet forms more easily with stronger RSOC, but Zeeman field in general decreases the binding energy. The spin—spin correlation decays fast in the vicinity of the magnetic impurity. Due to the RSOC, the spatial spin—spin correlation becomes highly anisotropic, and the Zeeman field can induce extra asymmetry to the off-diagonal components of the spin—spin correlation. Our study can offer some insights into the studies of extrinsic topological superconductors fabricated from the hybrid structures containing chains of magnetic impurities.     

Comparison of band structure and superconductivity in FeSe_(0.5)Te_(0.5) and FeS

The isovalent iron chalcogenides,FeSe_(0.5)Te_(0.5) and FeS,share similar lattice structures but behave very differently in superconducting properties.We study the underlying mechanism theoretically.By first principle calculations and tightbinding fitting,we find the spectral weight of the d_(X~2-Y~2) orbital changes remarkably in these compounds.While there are both electron and hole pockets in FeSe_(0.5)Te_(0.5) and Fe S,a small hole pocket with a mainly d_(X~2-Y~2) character is absent in FeS.We find the spectral weights of d_(X~2-Y~2) orbital change remarkably,which contribute to electron and hole pockets in FeSe_(0.5)Te_(0.5) but only to electron pockets in FeS.We then perform random-phase-approximation and unbiased singular-mode functional renormalization group calculations to investigate possible superconducting instabilities that may be triggered by electron-electron interactions on top of such bare band structures.For FeSe_(0.5)Te_(0.5) ,we find a fully gapped s~±-wave pairing that can be associated with spin fluctuations connecting electron and hole pockets.For Fe S,however,a nodal dxy(or d_(x~2-y~2) in an unfolded Broullin zone)is favorable and can be related to spin fluctuations connecting the electron pockets around the corner of the Brillouin zone.Apart from the difference in chacogenide elements,we propose the main source of the difference is from the d_(X~2-Y~2) orbital,which tunes the Fermi surface nesting vector and then influences the dominant pairing symmetry.