The Vortex Core Excitation Spectrum in Gapped Topological d-wave Superconductors

Abstract

There are indications that some high temperature unconventional superconductors have a "complex" d-wave order parameter (with an admixture of s-wave) leading to nonzero energy gap. Since the coherence length is short and the Fermi energy is relatively small the quasiclassical approach is inapplicable and the more complicated Bogoliubov-deGennes equations should be used to investigate the excitation spectrum of such a material in a magneric field. It turns out that equations for the chiral d-wave superconductor simplify considerably and is the basis for any superconductor of that type with a sufficiently large gap. The spectrum of core excitations of the Abrikosov vortex in an anisotropic 3D sample exhibits several features. Unlike in conventional and gapless superconductors the core has a single excitation mode of order energetic gap for each value of momentum along the field. This has a large impact on thermal transport and vortex dynamics.