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Title: Incommensurate Spin Fluctuations in the Spin-Triplet Superconductor Candidate UTe2

Journal Article · · Physical Review Letters

Spin-triplet superconductors are of extensive current interest because they can host topological state and Majorana fermions important for quantum computation. The uranium-based heavy-fermion superconductor UTe2 has been argued as a spin-triplet superconductor similar to UGe2, URhGe, and UCoGe, where the superconducting phase is near (or coexists with) a ferromagnetic (FM) instability and spin-triplet electron pairing is driven by FM spin fluctuations. Here we use neutron scattering to show that, although UTe2 exhibits no static magnetic order down to 0.3 K, its magnetism in the [0,K,L] plane is dominated by incommensurate spin fluctuations near an antiferromagnetic ordering wave vector and extends to at least 2.6 meV. We are able to understand the dominant incommensurate spin fluctuations of UTe2 in terms of its electronic structure calculated using a combined density-functional and dynamic mean-field theory.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; National Science Foundation (NSF)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725; SC0012311; FG02-04-ER46105; DMR-1810310; SC0018197; 89233218CNA000001
OSTI ID:
1735405
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1760601; OSTI ID: 1773812
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-20-24870; TRN: US2205214
Journal Information:
Physical Review Letters, Vol. 125, Issue 23; ISSN 0031-9007
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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