Exotic interband pairing in multiband superconductors

Abstract: Contrary to the usual assumption, the electron Bloch states in crystals with spin-orbit coupling do not always transform under symmetry operations in the same way as the pure spin-1/2 states. This has profound consequences for the symmetry properties and nodal structure of superconductors, especially for the interband gap functions. Focusing on tetragonal superconductors, we show that the interband pairing in the conventional (s-wave) channel can have features which are traditionally associated with unconventional pairing, such as triplet components and odd parity, and can produce line nodes in the excitation energy gap. In the d-wave case, the interband pairing, which can also be odd in momentum and have a triplet component, changes the positions and topology of the nodal lines.