Tandem Pairing in Heavy-Fermion Superconductors

Abstract

We consider the internal structure of a d-wave heavy-fermion superconducting condensate, showing that it necessarily contains two components condensed in tandem: pairs of quasiparticles on neighboring sites and composite pairs consisting of two electrons bound to a single local moment. These two components draw upon the antiferromagnetic and Kondo interactions to cooperatively enhance the superconducting transition temperature. This tandem condensate is electrostatically active, with an electric quadrupole moment predicted to lead to a superconducting shift in the nuclear quadrupole resonance frequency.