Nodal Orbital-Anti-Phase Superconducting State in Bilayer Nickelates
Abstract
The recent discovery of high-Tc superconductivity in the bilayer nickelate La3Ni2O7 (La-327) under applied pressure and compressive strain opened a new avenue to elucidate the interplay between multiorbital intralayer and interlayer electronically driven Cooper-pairing in bilayer systems. Depending on the details of the electronic structure in the normal state, the superconducting gap in bilayer nickelates is predicted to have either bonding-antibonding s±-wave symmetry, driven by dominant interlayer Cooper-pairing, or d-wave symmetry with substantial intralayer Cooper-pairing. Despite this general picture, the orbital structure of the superconducting gap in these multiorbital systems has been less explored. Here, we analyze the consequences of an orbital-anti-phase structure of the superconducting gap and discuss its possible experimental signatures. We demonstrate that additional pairs of nodes may appear on the α and/or β Fermi surface sheets due to the sign change of the superconducting gap between the involved orbitals. Apart from this additional nodal structure, which is not enforced by the symmetries of the gap function and can be probed in ARPES experiments, the orbital-anti-phase gap modifies the temperature dependence of the superfluid stiffness at low temperatures, providing a concrete experimental prediction to test its realization in bilayer nickelates and related multiorbital systems.
Related
- Superconducting half-dome in bilayer nickelates
- Hierarchical structure of primary and hybridization-induced superconducting correlations in bilayer nickelates
- Interplay of electric field and electronic correlations in pairing competition in bilayer nickelates
- Density waves in low-pressure bilayer nickelates
- Layer-Asymmetry-Induced Topological Superconductivity in High-Tc Bilayer Nickelates
BibTeX
@misc{scholten2026nodal,
title = {{Nodal Orbital-Anti-Phase Superconducting State in Bilayer Nickelates}},
author = {Marius Scholten and Steffen Bötzel and Frank Lechermann and Rafael M. Fernandes and Ilya M. Eremin},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.29263},
eprint = {2609.29263},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.29263},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Nodal Orbital-Anti-Phase Superconducting State in Bilayer Nickelates
AU - Marius Scholten
AU - Steffen Bötzel
AU - Frank Lechermann
AU - Rafael M. Fernandes
AU - Ilya M. Eremin
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/24
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.29263
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.29263
AB - The recent discovery of high-T_c superconductivity in the bilayer nickelate La_3Ni_2O_7 (La-327) under applied pressure and compressive strain opened a new avenue to elucidate the interplay between multiorbital intralayer and interlayer electronically driven Cooper-pairing in bilayer systems. Depending on the details of the electronic structure in the normal state, the superconducting gap in bilayer nickelates is predicted to have either bonding-antibonding s_±-wave symmetry, driven by dominant interlayer Cooper-pairing, or d-wave symmetry with substantial intralayer Cooper-pairing. Despite this general picture, the orbital structure of the superconducting gap in these multiorbital systems has been less explored. Here, we analyze the consequences of an orbital-anti-phase structure of the superconducting gap and discuss its possible experimental signatures. We demonstrate that additional pairs of nodes may appear on the α and/or β Fermi surface sheets due to the sign change of the superconducting gap between the involved orbitals. Apart from this additional nodal structure, which is not enforced by the symmetries of the gap function and can be probed in ARPES experiments, the orbital-anti-phase gap modifies the temperature dependence of the superfluid stiffness at low temperatures, providing a concrete experimental prediction to test its realization in bilayer nickelates and related multiorbital systems.
ER -