Pairing Symmetry of Heavy Fermion Superconductivity in the Two-Dimensional Kondo—Heisenberg Lattice Model

Abstract

In the two-dimensional Kondo—Heisenberg lattice model away from half-filled, the local antiferromagnetic exchange coupling can provide the pairing mechanism of quasiparticles via the Kondo screening effect, leading to the heavy fermion superconductivity. We find that the pairing symmetry strongly depends on the Fermi surface (FS) structure in the normal metallic state. When JH/JK is very small, the FS is a small hole-like circle around the corner of the Brillouin zone, and the s-wave pairing symmetry has a lower ground state energy. For the intermediate coupling values of JH/JK, the extended s-wave pairing symmetry gives the favored ground state. However, when JH/JK is larger than a critical value, the FS transforms into four small hole pockets crossing the boundary of the magnetic Brillouin zone, and the d-wave pairing symmetry becomes more favorable. In that regime, the resulting superconducting state is characterized by either a nodal d-wave or nodeless d-wave state, depending on the conduction electron filling factor as well. A continuous phase transition exists between these two states. This result may be related to the phase transition of the nodal d-wave state to a fully gapped state, which has recently been observed in Yb-doped CeCoIn5.