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Sauter-Schwinger Effect in a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer Superconductor
P Solinas1,2, A Amoretti1,2, F Giazotto3
1Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Genova, via Dodecaneso 33, I-16146 Genova, Italy.
Physical Review Letters
|April 2, 2021
Summary
A new superconducting Sauter-Schwinger effect is predicted, where electric fields create coherent excitations from superconductors. This phenomenon offers insights into quantum field theory and superconductor interactions.
Area of Science:
- Condensed matter physics
- Quantum field theory
Background:
- A strong connection exists between superconductivity and quantum field theory since the 1960s.
- The Anderson-Higgs mechanism and parallels between Dirac and Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations highlight this link.
- Fermion mass energy is analogous to superconducting gap energy, with massive Dirac particles identified as quasiparticle excitations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the parallelism between Dirac equations and superconductivity further.
- To predict and investigate the superconducting Sauter-Schwinger effect.
Main Methods:
- Theoretical analysis extending the Dirac-Bogoliubov-de Gennes equation analogy.
- Investigating the generation of excitations in a superconducting condensate by an electrostatic field.
Main Results:
- An electrostatic field can generate two coherent, dissipationless excitations from the superconducting ground-state condensate.
- These excitations form a new, macroscopically coherent state.
- The creation of these excitations weakens the superconducting state.
Conclusions:
- The study predicts the superconducting Sauter-Schwinger effect, analogous to the quantum electrodynamics Schwinger effect.
- Results suggest a method for experimental verification of the Sauter-Schwinger effect.
- Findings open avenues for understanding and utilizing superconductor-electric field interactions.
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