Relationship between Ferromagnetic Criticality and the Enhancement of Superconductivity Induced by Transverse Magnetic Fields in UCoGe

Abstract

We have performed 59Co NMR experiments on the ferromagnetic superconductor UCoGe under magnetic fields (H) along the a- and b- axes to investigate the relationship between ferromagnetic properties and superconductivity. The ferromagnetic ordering temperature TCurie is suppressed and the nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate 1/T1 at 2 K is enhanced in H || b, although TCurie and 1/T1 are unchanged in H || a, indicating that the ferromagnetic criticality is induced only when H is applied along the b axis. We show the close relationship between the magnetic anisotropies and the superconducting ones reported by Aoki et al.: the superconductivity is gradually suppressed in H || a, but enhanced in H || b above 5 T. We strongly suggest that the enhancement of the superconductivity observed in H || b originates from the field induced ferromagnetic criticality, as pointed out by Aoki et al and Mineev.