Magnetic and Crystal Structure at High Pressure in Spin Triplet Superconductor UAu2

Superconductivity with Cooper pairs containing electrons of equal spin, known as spin-triplet pairing, is a rare phenomenon speculated to exist in a few well known examples. Theoretical predictions suggest it leads to long sought phases of matter, such as chiral superconductivity, where Majorana zero modes suitable for topological computation may exist. We have discovered a new material, UAu2, where previous investigations on WISH saw unusual modulated magnetic order. Using hydrostatic high pressure we have suppressed the magnetic ordering in UAu2 above 3.2 GPa and discovered superconductivity below 1.5 K. Measurements of the critical field suggest the presence of spin-triplet pairing since it exceeds the Pauli limiting field for conventional pairing by over 3 times. The proposal is to look at any changes in magnetic or crystal structure approaching the superconductivity.