Why Mercury is a superconductor
Superconductivity
2022-11-23 v1 Materials Science
Abstract
Despite being the oldest known superconductor, solid mercury is mysteriously absent from all current computational databases of superconductors. In this work, we present a critical study of its superconducting properties based on state-of-the-art superconducting density-functional theory. Our calculations reveal numerous anomalies in electronic and lattice properties, which can mostly be handled, with due care, by modern ab-initio techniques. In particular, we highlight an anomalous role of (i) electron-electron correlations on structural properties (ii) spin-orbit coupling on the dynamical stability, and (iii) semicore levels on the effective Coulomb interaction and, ultimately, the critical temperature.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2111.13867,
title = {Why Mercury is a superconductor},
author = {Cesare Tresca and Gianni Profeta and Giovanni Marini and Giovanni B. Bachelet and Antonio Sanna and Matteo Calandra and Lilia Boeri},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2111.13867},
year = {2022}
}