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arXiv:2303.06750 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Collisionless dynamics of the pairing amplitude in disordered superconductors

Maxim Dzero

Published Mar 8, 2024• 10 citations
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Abstract

I consider relaxation of the pairing amplitude in a disordered Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superconductor in the absence of the two-particle collisions. My main assumption is that nonmagnetic and magnetic disorder scattering rates are much smaller than the value of the superconducting pairing gap ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{0}$. I derive a system of nonlinear equations which describe the collisionless relaxation of the pairing amplitude following a quench of the pairing strength. I find that in a superconductor in which scattering on paramagnetic impurities is dominant, the pairing amplitude in a steady state varies periodically with time even for small deviations from equilibrium. It is shown that such a steady state emerges due to scattering on paramagnetic impurities which leads to a decrease in the value of the resonant frequency of the amplitude mode below $2{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{0}$.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.109.l100503

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I consider relaxation of the pairing amplitude in a disordered Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superconductor in the absence of the two-particle collisions. My main assumption is that nonmagnetic and magnetic disorder scattering rates are much smaller than the value of the superconducting pairing gap \ensuremathΔ0{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{0}\ensuremathΔ0​. I derive a system of nonlinear equations which describe the collisionless relaxation of the pairing amplitude following a quench of the pairing strength. I find that in a superconductor in which scattering on paramagnetic impurities is dominant, the pairing amplitude in a steady state varies periodically with time even for small deviations from equilibrium. It is shown that such a steady state emerges due to scattering on paramagnetic impurities which leads to a decrease in the value of the resonant frequency of the amplitude mode below 2\ensuremathΔ02{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{0}2\ensuremathΔ0​.
Recent experimental progress in the fields of cold quantum gases and ultrafast optical spectroscopy of quantum materials allows us to controllably induce and probe nonadiabatic dynamics of superconductors and superfluids. The time evolution of the gap function before relaxation with the lattice is determined by the superposition of coherently evolving individual Cooper pairs within the manifold of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) wave function. While dynamics following an abrupt quench of the pairing interaction strength in the single-band BCS model has been exactly solved due to the integrability of the model, the dynamics of postquench multiband superconductors remain under scrutiny. Here, we develop a generalization of the Volkov-Kogan Laplace-space perturbative method that allows us to determine the nonadiabatic gap dynamics of two-band fully gapped superconductors for a wide range of quench amplitudes. Our approach expands the long-time dynamics around the steady-state asymptotic value of the gap, which is self-consistently determined, rather than around the equilibrium value of the gap. We explicitly demonstrate that this method recovers the exact solution of the long-time gap dynamics in the single-band case and perfectly agrees with a numerical solution of the two-band model. We discover that dephasing of Cooper pairs from different bands leads to faster collisionless relaxation of the gap oscillation with a power law of ${t}^{\ensuremath{-}3/2}$ instead of the well-known ${t}^{\ensuremath{-}1/2}$ behavior found in the single-band case. Furthermore, the gap oscillations display beating patterns arising from the existence of two different asymptotic gap values. Our results have important implications to a variety of two-band superconductors driven out of equilibrium, such as iron-based superconductors, MgB2{\mathrm{MgB}}_{2}MgB2​, and SrTiO3{\mathrm{SrTiO}}_{3}SrTiO3​.
A BCS (Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer) superconductor, which is placed out of equilibrium, can develop quantum instabilities, which manifest themselves in oscillations of the superconductor's order parameter (pairing amplitude Δ). These instabilities are manifestations of the Cooper instability. Inelastic collisions are essential in resolving those instabilities. Incorporating the quantum instabilities and collisions in a unified approach based on Richardson's exact solution of the pairing Hamiltonian, we find that a BCS superconductor may end up in a state in which the spectrum has more than one gap.
We investigate the nonequilibrium behavior of dilute, attractively interacting Fermi gases subjected to finite-duration ramps of their internal interaction strength. We identify three dynamical regimes as a function of ramp duration using a time-dependent version of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory of superconductivity to model these systems. For short ramp durations, these systems become nonsuperconducting; however, fermions with opposite momenta remain paired albeit with reduced amplitudes, and the associated pair amplitude distribution is nonthermal. In this first regime, the disappearance of superconductivity is due to the loss of phase coherence between pairs. By contrast, for intermediate ramp durations, superconductivity survives but the magnitude of the order parameter is reduced and presents long-lived oscillations. Finally, for long ramp durations, phase coherence is almost fully retained during the finite-duration interaction quench, and the steady state is characterized by a thermal-like pair amplitude distribution. Using this approach, one can therefore dynamically tune the coherence between pairs to control the magnitude of the superconducting order parameter and even engineer a nonequilibrium state made of preformed pairs.
We study the collisionless dynamics of two classes of nonintegrable pairing models. One is a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer model with separable energy-dependent interactions, and the other is a two-dimensional topological superconductor with spin-orbit coupling and a band-splitting external field. The long-time quantum quench dynamics at integrable points of these models are well understood. Namely the squared magnitude of the time-dependent order parameter $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}(t)$ can vanish (Phase I), reach a nonzero constant (Phase II), or periodically oscillate as an elliptic function (Phase III). We demonstrate that nonintegrable models, too, exhibit some or all of these nonequilibrium phases. Remarkably, elliptic periodic oscillations persist, even though both their amplitude and functional form change drastically with integrability breaking. Striking new phenomena accompany loss of integrability. First, an extremely long timescale emerges in the relaxation to Phase III, such that short-time numerical simulations risk erroneously classifying the asymptotic state. This timescale diverges near integrable points. Second, an entirely new Phase IV of quasiperiodic oscillations of $|\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}|$ emerges in the quantum quench phase diagrams of nonintegrable pairing models. As integrability techniques do not apply for the models we study, we develop the concept of asymptotic self-consistency and a linear stability analysis of the asymptotic phases. With the help of these new tools, we determine the phase boundaries, characterize the asymptotic state, and clarify the physical meaning of the quantum quench phase diagrams of BCS superconductors. We also propose an explanation of these diagrams in terms of bifurcation theory.
Within the time-dependent Gutzwiller approximation applied to the negative-UUU Hubbard model, we investigate the dynamics of a superconductor after an interaction quench for different values of the final interaction from weak to strong coupling. The equilibrium BCS-BEC crossover becomes a sharp transition in the out-of-equilibrium dynamics between weak- and strong-coupling dynamical phases. Two different frequencies (${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}}_{J}<{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}}_{U}$) dominate the order parameter dynamics. In the weak coupling phase, ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}}_{J}$ follows twice the asymptotic average value of the gap (${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}}_{J}\ensuremath{\approx}2{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{\ensuremath{\infty}}$) and ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}}_{U}$ is much larger but hardy visible in the anomalous density. At long times the BCS dynamics is recovered but surprisingly differences remain during the transient phase. In the strong coupling phase, the dynamics decouples from the asymptotic value of the order parameter except at exactly half filling and close to the dynamical transition where ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}}_{U}\ensuremath{\approx}2{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{\ensuremath{\infty}}$. The out-of-equilibrium transient spectral density and optical conductivity are presented and discussed in relation to pump probe experiments. Both ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}}_{J}$ and ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}}_{U}$ give rise to a complex structure of self-driven slow Rabi oscillations which are visible in the nonequilibrium optical conductivity where also sidebands appear due to the modulation of the double occupancy by superconducting amplitude oscillations. Analogous results apply to CDW and SDW systems. Our results show that in systems with long coherence times, pump-probe experiments allow us to characterize the regime (BCS vs preformed pairs) through very specific out-of-equilibrium fingerprints.
The dynamics of BCS (Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer) superconductors is fairly well understood due to the availability of a mean-field solution for the pairing Hamiltonian, a solution which gives the quantum state of a superconductor as a state of almost-free fermions interacting only with a condensate. As a result, transition probabilities may be computed, and expressed in terms of matrix elements of electron creation and annihilation operators between approximate eigenstates. These matrix elements are also called ``coherence factors.'' Mean-field theory is however not sufficient to describe all eigenstates of a superconductor, a deficiency which is hardly important in (or very close to) equilibrium, but one that becomes relevant in certain out-of-equilibrium situations. We report here on a computation of matrix elements (coherence factors) for the pairing Hamiltonian between any ``two-arc'' eigenstates in the thermodynamic limit.