Ground-state angular momentum, spectral asymmetry, and topology in chiral superfluids and superconductors

Recently, it was discovered that the ground-state orbital angular momentum in two-dimensional chiral superfluids with pairing symmetry (px+ipy)ν depends on the winding number ν in a striking manner. The ground-state value for the ν=1 case is Lz=N/2 as expected by counting the Cooper pairs, while a d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical Review B
Main Author: Ojanen, Teemu
Other Authors: Department of Applied Physics, Aalto-yliopisto, Aalto University
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2016
Subjects:
IPY
Online Access:https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/33069
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.93.174505
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Summary:Recently, it was discovered that the ground-state orbital angular momentum in two-dimensional chiral superfluids with pairing symmetry (px+ipy)ν depends on the winding number ν in a striking manner. The ground-state value for the ν=1 case is Lz=N/2 as expected by counting the Cooper pairs, while a dramatic cancellation takes place for ν>1. The origin of the cancellation is associated with the topological edge states that appear in a finite geometry and give rise to a spectral asymmetry. Here, we study the reduction of orbital angular momentum for different potential profiles and pairing strengths, showing that the result Lz=N/2 is robust for ν=1 under all studied circumstances. We study how angular momentum depends on the gap size Δ/EF and obtain the result Lz=ν2N(1-μEF) for ν=2,3. Thus, the gap dependence of Lz for ν Peer reviewed