2011/11/30 by Andreas P. Schnyder, P. M. R. Brydon, Carsten Timm
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Bound state #Brillouin zone #Condensed matter physics #Geometry #Homogeneous space #Mathematics #Pairing #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum mechanics #Spectral line #Superconductivity #Surface (topology) #Surface states #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Topology (electrical circuits) #Zero-point energy #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.85.024522
published as Phys. Rev. B 85, 024522 (2012) · 15 pages, 8 figures, published version
openalex publication_date 2012/01/11 · arxiv created 2012/01/12 · arxiv updated 2012/01/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Nodal noncentrosymmetric superconductors have topologically nontrivial properties manifested by protected zero-energy surface states. Specifically, it was recently found that zero-energy surface flat bands of topological origin appear at their surface. We show that the presence of certain inversion-type lattice symmetries can give rise to additional topological features of the gap nodes, resulting in surface states forming one-dimensional arcs connecting the projections of two nodal rings. In addition, we demonstrate that Majorana surface states can appear at time-reversal-invariant momenta of the surface Brillouin zone, even when the system is not fully gapped in the bulk. Within a continuum theory we derive the topological invariants that protect these different types of zero-energy surface states. We independently derive general conditions for the existence of zero-energy surface bound states using the complementary quasiclassical scattering theory, explicitly taking into account the effects of spin-orbit splitting of the bands. We compute surface bound-state spectra for various crystal point-group symmetries and orbital-angular-momentum pairing states. Finally, we examine the signatures of the arc surface states and of the zero-energy surface flat bands in tunneling-conductance spectra and dicuss how topological phase transitions in noncentrosymmetric superconductors could be observed in experiments.