Nodal Structures of Heavy Fermion Superconductors Probed by the Specific-Heat Measurements in Magnetic Fields

Abstract

Heavy electron superconductors mostly have anisotropic gap function which vanishes (has nodes) for certain directions in the momentum space. Since the nodal structure is closely related to the pairing mechanism, its experimental determination is very important. In anisotropic superconductors, low energy spectrum of the quasiparticles in the vortex state much depends on the nodal structure. In particular, the electronic specific heat has been demonstrated to exhibit the characteristic dependence on the angle between the field and the nodal direction, thereby the nodal structure can be probed experimentally. In this contribution, we present our recent experimental results on the field-orientation dependence of the specific heat on f electron superconductors CeRu₂, CeCoIn₅, PrOs₄Sb₁₂, and URu₂Si₂, and discuss their gap structures.