Bulk Electronic State of Superconducting Topological Insulator

Abstract

We study electronic properties of a superconducting topological insulator whose parent material is a topological insulator. We calculate the temperature dependence of the specific heat and spin susceptibility for four promising superconducting pairings proposed by L. Fu and E. Berg (Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 097001). Since the line shapes of temperature dependence of specific heat are almost identical among three of the four pairings, it is difficult to identify them simply from the specific heat. On the other hand, we obtain wide varieties of the temperature dependence of spin susceptibility for each pairing reflecting the spin structure of Cooper pair. We propose that the pairing symmetry of superconducting topological insulator can be determined from measurement of Knight shift by changing the direction of applied magnetic field.