Strange superconductivity near an antiferromagnetic heavy-fermion quantum critical point

Abstract

The heavy fermion systems CeMIn5 with M = Co, Rh, Ir, the "115" family, provide a prototypical example of strange superconductivity with unconventional d-wave pairing and strange metal normal state, emerged near an antiferromagnetic quantum critical point. The microscopic origin of strange superconductivity and its link to antiferromagnetic quantum criticality of the strange metal state are still long-standing open issues. We propose a microscopic mechanism for strange superconductors, based on the coexistence and competition between the Kondo correlation and the quasi-2d short-ranged antiferromagnetic resonating-valence-bond spin-liquid near the antiferromagnetic quantum critical point via a large-N Kondo-Heisenberg model and renormalization group analysis beyond the mean-field level. The interplay of these two effects provides a qualitative understanding on how superconductivity emerges from the strange metal state and the observed superconducting phase diagrams for CeMIn5.