Fractional magnetoresistance oscillations in spin-triplet superconducting rings

Half-quantum vortices in spin-triplet superconductors are predicted to host Majorana zero modes and may provide a viable platform for topological quantum computation. Recent works also suggested that, in thin mesoscopic rings, the superconducting pairing symmetry can be probed via Little-Parks-like magnetoresistance oscillations of periodicity $Φ_0 = h / 2e$ that persist below the critical temperature. Here we use the London limit of Ginzburg-Landau theory to study these magnetoresistance oscillations resulting from thermal vortex tunneling in spin-triplet superconducting rings. For a range of temperatures in the presence of disorder, we find novel oscillations with an emergent fractional periodicity $Φ_0 / n$, where the integer $n \geq 3$ is entirely determined by the ratio of the spin and charge superfluid densities. These fractional oscillations can unambiguously confirm the spin-triplet nature of superconductivity and directly reveal the tunneling of half-quantum vortices in candidate materials such as Sr$_2$RuO$_4$ and UTe$_2$.

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