Comparison of the thermal conductivity of superconducting Zn-Mn alloys with Shiba's theory

Abstract

Measurements by Sanchez of the thermal conductivity of Zn-Mn alloys are compared with calculations based on Shiba's theory of superconductors containing magnetic impurities, using ${\epsilon }_0$ (the normalized position within the energy gap of the excited state associated with a single impurity atom) as an adjustable parameter. The values of ${\epsilon }_0$ which best fit the data are in the range 0.7-1.0. However, all values of ${\epsilon }_0$ within the allowed range (0-1) fit the data to within the experimental uncertainty.