Unconventional Superconductivity from Fermi Surface Fluctuations in Strongly Correlated Metals*

The mechanism for unconventional superconductivity in quantum critical metals remains a puzzle in the field of strongly correlated systems. The notion of a Kondo destruction quantum critical point, at which quasiparticles are lost everywhere on the Fermi surface and across which Fermi surface goes from large to small, has been advanced in the study of antiferromagnetic heavy-fermion metals [1].  Here [2], using the cluster EDMFT method [3], we demonstrate how the Fermi surface fluctuations drive unconventional superconductivity whose transition temperature is exceptionally high relative to (reaching several percent of) the effective Fermi temperature. Our results provide a natural understanding of the enigmatic superconductivity in a host of heavy-fermion metals. Moreover, the qualitative physics underlying our findings and their implications for the formation of unconventional superconductivity apply to other highly correlated metals with strong Fermi-surface fluctuations.

 

[1] S. Paschen and Q. Si, Nat. Rev. Phys. 3, 9 (2021). Q. Si et al, Nature 413, 804 (2001); S. Kirchner et al, Rev. Mod. Phys. 92, 011002 (2020).

 

[2] H. Hu, et al., arXiv:2109.13224 (2021).

 

[3] J. Pixley et al, PRB 91, 125127 (2015).