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Unpaired Electrons in the Heavy-Fermion Superconductor CeCoIn5

M. A. Tanatar, Johnpierre Paglione, S. Nakatsuji, D. G. Hawthorn, E. Boaknin, R. W. Hill, F. Ronning, M. Sutherland, Louis Taillefer, C. Petrovic, P. C. Canfield, Z. Fisk

cond-mat.supr-conarXiv:cond-mat/0503342

Abstract

Thermal conductivity and specific heat were measured in the superconducting state of the heavy fermion material Ce1-xLaxCoIn5. With increasing impurity concentration x, the suppression of Tc is accompanied by the increase in the residual electronic specific heat expected of a d-wave superconductor, but it occurs in parallel with a decrease in residual electronic thermal conductivity. This contrasting behavior reveals the presence of uncondensed electrons coexisting with nodal quasiparticles. An extreme multiband scenario is proposed, with a d-wave superconducting gap on the heavy-electron sheets of the Fermi surface and a negligible gap on the light, three-dimensional pockets.

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