A theoretical study is reported on the origin of extremely high upper critical field $\sim$70T observed in UTe$_2$ with the transition temperature T$_{ \rm c}$=1.6K-2K, far exceeding the conventional orbital depairing limit set by the Fermi velocity and T$_{ \rm c}$ for a superconductor (SC) in the clean limit. We investigate possible violation of the orbital limit in terms of a spin-triplet nonunitary state, which is effectively coupled to the underlying magnetization induced by external field. This in turn produces the reduced internal field by cancelling it via magnetization. We formulate a theory within Ginzburg-Landau framework to describe this orbital limit violation and analyze experimental data on the upper critical fields for various field orientations in UTe$_2$. It is pointed out that the orbital limit violation for a spin-triplet SC together with the Pauli-Clogston limit violation for a spin-singlet SC constitutes a complete and useful framework to examine the high field physics in superconductors in the clean limit.
Categories: cond-mat.supr-con