Related papers: BCS as Foundation and Inspiration: The Transmutati…
On the occasion of centenary of superconductivity discovery I recall some facts from the first period and attempts to understand the phenomenon. It turns out that most famous physicists of the first half of XX century have tried to solve…
When first proposed in 1957, the BCS theory for superconductivity, which explained the quasi-totality of its thermodynamic and transport properties, was greeted with great circumspection, before it became the play ground of particle…
On the occasion of centenary of superconductivity discovery I remind some facts from the first period and attempts to understand the phenomenon. It turns out that most famous physicists of the first half of XX century have tried to solve…
Superconducting state is achieved through quantum condensation of Cooper pairs which are new types of charge carriers other than single electrons in normal metals. The theory established by Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) in 1957 can…
Recently an N=1 supersymmetric model of BCS superconductivity was proposed realizing spontaneous symmetry breaking of a U(1)_R symmetry. Due to scalar contributions the superconducting phase transition turned out to be first order rather…
Departing from the assumption that pairing is induced by an retarded external 'bosonic glue', we reformulate the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory of superconductivity as a scaling theory. Conventional superconductors correspond with the…
The (mean field based) BCS theory is considered one of the most successful theories in condensed matter physics. It is justified in ordinary metal superconductors the coherence length $\xi$ is large, with two important features: the order…
Almost half a century passed between the discovery of superconductivity by Kamerlingh Onnes and the theoretical explanation of the phenomenon by Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer. During the intervening years the brightest minds in theoretical…
A retrospective historical overview of the phenomenon of spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) in quantum theory, the issue that has been implemented in particle physics in the form of the Higgs mechanism. The main items are: -- The…
The BCS-BEC crossover is studied in a systematic way in the broken-symmetry phase between zero temperature and the critical temperature. This study bridges two regimes where quantum and thermal fluctuations are, respectively, important. The…
Superconductivity is a remarkably widespread phenomenon observed in most metals cooled down to very low temperatures. The ubiquity of such conventional superconductors, and the wide range of associated critical temperatures, is readily…
The concept of Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking (SSB) represents a real breakthrough for present description of fundamental interactions by means of gauge theories. Although the underlying ideas were ancient, their formalization required a…
Spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) is a key concept in physics that for decades has played a crucial role in the description of many physical phenomena in a large number of different areas, like particle physics, cosmology, and…
We have revealed three fatal errors incurred from a blind transferring of quantum field methods into the quantum mechanics. This had tragic consequences because it produced crippled model Hamiltonians, unfortunately considered sufficient…
The association of broken symmetries with phase transitions is ubiquitous in condensed matter physics: crystals break translational symmetry, magnets break rotational symmetry, and superconductors break gauge symmetry. However, despite the…
For the Cooper/BCS model interaction in superconductors (SCs) it is shown: a) how BCS-Bose crossover picture transition temperatures Tc, defined self-consistently by both the gap and fermion-number equations, require unphysically large…
Perhaps the most important aspect of symmetry in physics is the idea that a state does not need to have the same symmetries as the theory that describes it. This phenomenon is known as spontaneous symmetry breaking. In these lecture notes,…
A general theory of superconductivity based on the pairing of electrons that belong to different electronic bands is presented. These electronic bands arise because of a symmetry breaking at the critical temperature in such a way that one…
Symmetry, in particular gauge symmetry, is a fundamental principle in theoretical physics. It is intimately connected to the geometry of fibre bundles. A refinement to the gauge principle, known as ``spontaneous symmetry breaking'', leads…
New developments in superconductivity, particularly through unexpected and often astonishing forms of superconducting materials, continue to excite the community and stimulate theory. It is now becoming clear that there are two distinct…