Is the diagonal part of the self-energy negligible within an isolated vortex in weak-coupling superconductors?

Abstract

In the weak-coupling theory of superconductivity, the diagonal self-energy term is usually disregarded so that this term is already included in the renormalized chemical potential. Using the bulk solution, we can easily see that the term vanishes in the quasiclassical level. However, the validity of this treatment is obscured in non-uniform systems, such as quantized vortices. In this paper, we study an isolated vortex both analytically and numerically by the quasiclassical theory and demonstrate that the finite magnitude of the self-energy can emerge within a vortex in some odd-parity superconductors. We also find that the existence of diagonal self-energy can induce the breaking of axisymmetry of vortices in chiral p-wave superconductors. This implies that the diagonal self-energy is not negligible within a vortex in odd-parity superconductors in general, even in the weak-coupling limit.