islamabad – In a study published in Quantum Materials, Si of Rice University and Nica of Arizona State University argue that unconventional superconductivity in some iron-based and heavy-fermion materials arises from a general phenomenon called “multiorbital singlet pairing.” In superconductors, electrons form pairs and flow without resistance.
Physicists cannot fully explain how pairs form in unconventional superconductors, where quantum forces give rise to strange behavior. Heavy fermions, another quantum material, feature electrons that appear to be thousands of times more massive than ordinary electrons. Si and Nica proposed the idea of selective pairing within atomic orbitals in 2017 to explain unconventional superconductivity in alkaline iron selenides. The following year, they applied the orbital-selective model to the heavy fermion material in which unconventional superconductivity was first demonstrated in 1979. They considered naming the model after a related mathematical expression made famous by quantum pioneer Wolfgang Pauli, but opted to call it d+d.
The name refers to mathematical wave functions that describe quantum states.
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