Superconductivity

We obtain self-consistent macroscopic equations describing interlayer Josephson effect and intralayer disequilibrium in one-dimensional array of Josephson coupled layers. We show that ``nonequilibrium coupling'' can lead to effective spatial and time synchronization and formation of coherent dynamic resistive state (collective Josephson effect) in Nb-AlO-Nb stacked junctions and HTSC (intrinsic Josephson effect). We propose it to be the origin of collective switching phenomena observed in PbBiSrCaCuO.

The threshold for creep in the Bean critical state is investigated. We perturb the Bean state by an energy Δϵ . We find that no matter how small Δϵ is it will always be able to induce creep somewhere on the Bean profile. This finding has important consequences for the interpretation of low temperature creep phenomena in terms of quantum creep.

We study the effect of fluctuations on the {\bf ac} conductivity of a layered superconductor both for c -axis and ab -plane electromagnetic wave polarizations. The fluctuation contributions of different physical nature and signs (paraconductivity, Maki-Thompson anomalous contribution, one-electron density of states renormalization) are found to be suppressed by the external field at different characterisitic frequencies ( ω AL ∼T− T c , ω MT ∼max{T− T c , τ −1 φ } , ω DOS ∼min{T, τ −1 } for the 2D case). As a result the appearance of the nonmonotonic frequency dependence (pseudogap) in the infrared optical conductivity of HTS film is predicted. The effect has to be especially pronounced in the case of the electromagnetic field polarization along c -axis.

Magnetic flux can penetrate a type-II superconductor in form of Abrikosov vortices. These tend to arrange in a triangular flux-line lattice (FLL) which is more or less perturbed by material inhomogeneities that pin the flux lines, and in high- T c supercon- ductors (HTSC's) also by thermal fluctuations. Many properties of the FLL are well described by the phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau theory or by the electromagnetic London theory, which treats the vortex core as a singularity. In Nb alloys and HTSC's the FLL is very soft mainly because of the large magnetic penetration depth: The shear modulus of the FLL is thus small and the tilt modulus is dispersive and becomes very small for short distortion wavelength. This softness of the FLL is enhanced further by the pronounced anisotropy and layered structure of HTSC's, which strongly increases the penetration depth for currents along the c-axis of these uniaxial crystals and may even cause a decoupling of two-dimensional vortex lattices in the Cu-O layers. Thermal fluctuations and softening may melt the FLL and cause thermally activated depinning of the flux lines or of the 2D pancake vortices in the layers. Various phase transitions are predicted for the FLL in layered HTSC's. The linear and nonlinear magnetic response of HTSC's gives rise to interesting effects which strongly depend on the geometry of the experiment.

The analogy between the Cooper pair in high temperature superconductor and the quark-antiquark pair in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is proposed. In QCD the nonlinear chromodynamical field between a quark and an antiquark is confined to a tube. So we assume that there is the strong interaction between phonons which can confine them to some tube too. This tube is described using the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. We show that it has an infinite spectrum of axially symmetric (string) solutions with negative finite linear energy density. The one-dimensional nonlinear Schrödinger equation has a finite spectrum (hence, it has a steady-state) which describes the Cooper pair squezeed between anisotropy planes in the superconductor. It is shown that in this model the transition temperature is approximately 45 K.

This is an analytic study of the problem of transitions between normal and superconducting phases for a sample which encloses a magnetic flux. A preliminary study of this problem, based on numerical minimization of the free energy for a particular form of the thickness of the sample, was published in Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 75}, 320 (1995). For a sample of uniform thickness the order parameter is uniform, but even infinitesimal deviations from uniform thickness give rise to a singly connected state in which the order parameter vanishes at a suitable layer, so that the superconducting part does not enclose the magnetic field. The stability domain of this singly connected state is a line segment in the magnetic field-temperature plane, delimited by two critical points. The phase diagram contains several bifurcation lines, which are systematically analyzed.

The bias-dependent resistance R(V) of NS-junctions is calculated using the Keldysh formalism in all orders of the transfer matrix element. We present a compact and simple formula for the Andreev current, that results from the coupling of electrons and holes on the normal side via the anomalous Green's function on the superconducting side. Using simple BCS Nambu-Green's functions the well known Blonder-Tinkam-Klapwijk theory can be recovered. Incorporating the energy-dependent quasi-particle lifetime of the heavy fermions strongly reduces the Andreev-reflection signal.

We consider modified t−J model with minimum of single-hole dispersion at the points (0,±π) , (±π,0) . It is shown that two holes on antiferromagnetic background produce a bound state which properties strongly differs from the states known in the unmodified t−J model. The bound state is d-wave, it has four nodes on the face of the magnetic Brillouin zone. However, in the coordinate representation it looks like as usual s-wave.

The most recent data about the weak gravitational shielding produced recently through a levitating and rotating HTC superconducting disk show a very weak dependence of the shielding value ( ∼1% ) on the height above the disk. We show that whilst this behaviour is incompatible with an intuitive vectorial picture of the shielding, it is consistently explained by our theoretical model. The expulsive force observed at the border of the shielded zone is due to energy conservation.

It has recently been suggested from scaling arguments that the non-linear IV-exponent a, for a two-dimensional superconductor is different from the exponent originally suggested by Ambegaokar et al. The relation between the new and the old exponent is a=a_AHNS-3. The new scaling behaviour is linked to the logarithmic vortex interaction and the long range time tail which this gives rise to. Consequently one may expect that the scaling behavior is generic for models which have these basic features. The simplest model of this type is the two-dimensional Coulomb gas model with Langevin dynamics. We here explicitly verify, through computer simulations, that the IV-characteristics of this model indeed scales according to the new scaling exponent a. Keywords: vortex, Coulomb gas, IV-exponent, Simulations, Langevin, 2D superconductor, thin films.