A theory of new type of heavy-electron superconductivity in PrOs4Sb12: quadrupolar-fluctuation mediated odd-parity pairings
Abstract
It is shown that unconventional nature of superconducting state of PrOs4Sb12, a Pr-based heavy electron compound with the filled-Skutterudite structure, can be explained in a unified way by taking into account the structure of the crystalline-electric-field (CEF) level, the shape of the Fermi surface determined by the band structure calculation, and a picture of the quasiparticles in f2-configuration with magnetically singlet CEF ground state. Possible types of pairing are narrowed down by consulting recent experimental results. In particular, the chiral "p"-wave states such as px+ipy is favoured under the magnetic field due to the orbital Zeeman effect, while the "p"-wave states with two-fold symmetery such as px can be stabilized by a feedback effect without the magnetic field. It is also discussed that the double superconducting transition without the magnetic field is possible due to the spin-orbit coupling of the "triplet" Cooper pairs in the chiral state.
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