Theoretical Study of Impurity Effects on Superconductivity in UTe ₂

This study investigates the impurity effects on UTe2 within the self-consistent Born approximation using the six-orbital f-d-p model which contains two uranium and tellurium atoms in the minimum unit cell. We analyze the dependence of superconducting transition temperature (Tc) on impurity concentration for various pairing symmetries proposed by experiments and theories. It clarifies that the decrease of Tc significantly depends on which atom sites the impurities reside. Particulalry, the analysis shows that the impurity at U-site has dominant effect on the change of Tc. Then, either the singlet state in the case of magnetic impurities or the triplet states in both non-magnetic and magnetic impurities are consistent with experiments. Thus, this indicates that elucidating the magnetic properties of impurities (i.e. magnetic or non-magnetic) is crucial for identifying the pairing symmetry of UTe2.