Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:2306.14500 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Inclusion of pairing fluctuations in the differential equation for the gap parameter for superfluid fermions in the presence of nontrivial spatial constraints

L. Pisani, V. Piselli, Giancarlo Calvanese Strinati

Published Dec 1, 2023• 7 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Most theoretical treatments of inhomogeneous superconductivity/fermionic superfluidity have been based on the Bogoliubov-deGennes equations (or, else, on their various simplified forms), which implement a standard mean-field decoupling in the presence of spatial inhomogeneities. This approach is reliable even at finite temperature for weak interparticle attraction, when the Cooper pair size is much larger than the average interparticle distance (corresponding to the BCS limit of the BCS-BEC crossover). However, it loses accuracy for increasing attraction when the Cooper pair size becomes comparable or even smaller than the average interparticle distance (corresponding to the BEC limit of the BCS-BEC crossover), in particular when finite-temperature effects are considered. In these cases, inclusion of pairing fluctuations beyond mean field is required, a task that turns out to be especially difficult in the presence of inhomogeneities. Here, we implement the inclusion of pairing fluctuations directly on a coarse-graining version of the Bogoliubov-deGennes equations, which makes it simpler and faster to obtain a solution over the whole sector of the temperature-coupling phase diagram of the BCS-BEC crossover in the broken-symmetry phase. We apply this method in the presence of a supercurrent flow, such that problems related to the Josephson effect throughout the BCS-BEC crossover can be addressed under a variety of circumstances. This is relevant in the view of recent experimental data with ultracold Fermi atoms, to which the results of the present approach are shown to favorably compare in the companion paper.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.108.214503

Related papers

Josephson current flowing through a nontrivial geometry: Role of pairing fluctuations across the BCS-BEC crossover

V. Piselli, L. Pisani, Giancarlo Calvanese Strinati

A realistic description of the Josephson effect at finite temperature with ultracold Fermi gases embedded in nontrivial geometrical constraints (typically, a trap plus a barrier) requires appropriate consideration of pairing fluctuations that arise in inhomogeneous environments. Here, we apply the theoretical approach developed in a companion paper [Pisani et al., Phys. Rev. B 108, 214503 (2023)], where the inclusion of pairing fluctuations beyond mean field across the BCS--Bose-Einstein-condensate (BEC) crossover at finite temperature is combined with a detailed description of the gap parameter in a nontrivial geometry. In this way, we are able to account for the experimental results on the Josephson critical current, reported both at low temperature for various couplings across the BCS-BEC crossover and as a function of temperature at unitarity. Besides validating the theoretical approach of the companion paper, our numerical results reveal generic features of the Josephson effect which may not readily emerge from an analysis of corresponding experiments with condensed-matter samples owing to the unique intrinsic flexibility of experiments with ultracold gases.

Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Dec 1, 2023•6 citations

Gap equation with pairing correlations beyond the mean-field approximation and its equivalence to a Hugenholtz-Pines condition for fermion pairs

L. Pisani, P. Pieri, Giancarlo Calvanese Strinati

The equation for the gap parameter represents the main equation of the pairing theory of superconductivity. Although it is formally defined through a single-particle property, physically, it reflects the pairing correlations between opposite-spin fermions. Here, we exploit this physical connection and cast the gap equation in an alternative form which explicitly highlights these two-particle correlations by showing that it is equivalent to a Hugenholtz-Pines condition for fermion pairs. At a formal level, a direct connection is established in this way between the treatment of the condensate fraction in condensate systems of fermions and bosons. At a practical level, the use of this alternative form of the gap equation is expected to make easier the inclusion of pairing fluctuations beyond mean field. As a proof-of-concept of the new method, we apply the modified form of the gap equation to the long-pending problem about the inclusion of the Gorkov-Melik-Barkhudarov correction across the whole BCS-BEC crossover, from the BCS limit of strongly overlapping Cooper pairs to the BEC limit of dilute composite bosons, and for all temperatures in the superfluid phase. Our numerical calculations yield excellent agreement with the recently determined experimental values of the gap parameter for an ultracold Fermi gas in the intermediate regime between BCS and BEC, as well as with the available quantum Monte Carlo data in the same regime.

arXiv:1806.08635•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Sep 11, 2018•32 citations

Josephson current flowing through a nontrivial geometry: The role of pairing fluctuations across the BCS-BEC crossover

V. Piselli, L. Pisani, Giancarlo Calvanese Strinati

A realistic description of the Josephson effect at finite temperature with ultra-cold Fermi gases embedded in nontrivial geometrical constraints (typically, a trap plus a barrier) requires appropriate consideration of pairing fluctuations that arise in inhomogeneous environments. Here, we apply the theoretical approach developed in the companion article [Pisani \emph{et al.}, Phys. Rev. B {\bf 108}, 214503 (2023)], where the inclusion of pairing fluctuations beyond mean field across the BCS-BEC crossover at finite temperature is combined with a detailed description of the gap parameter in a nontrivial geometry. In this way, we are able to account for the experimental results on the Josephson critical current, reported both at low temperature for various couplings across the BCS-BEC crossover and as a function of temperature at unitarity. Besides validating the theoretical approach of the companion article, our numerical results reveal generic features of the Josephson effect which may not readily emerge from an analysis of corresponding experiments with condensed-matter samples owing to the unique intrinsic flexibility of experiments with ultra-cold gases.

arXiv:2306.14494•Jun 26, 2023•0 citations

Nonlocal equation for the superconducting gap parameter

Stefano Simonucci, Giancarlo Calvanese Strinati

The properties are considered in detail of a nonlocal (integral) equation for the superconducting gap parameter, which is obtained by a coarse-graining procedure applied to the Bogoliubov-de Gennes (BdG) equations over the whole coupling-versus-temperature phase diagram associated with the superfluid phase. It is found that the limiting size of the coarse-graining procedure, which is dictated by the range of the kernel of this integral equation, corresponds to the size of the Cooper pairs over the whole coupling-versus-temperature phase diagram up to the critical temperature, even when Cooper pairs turn into composite bosons on the BEC side of the BCS-BEC crossover. A practical method is further implemented to solve numerically this integral equation in an efficient way, which is based on a novel algorithm for calculating the Fourier transforms. Application of this method to the case of an isolated vortex, throughout the BCS-BEC crossover and for all temperatures in the superfluid phase, helps clarifying the nature of the length scales associated with a single vortex and the kinds of details that are in practice disposed off by the coarse-graining procedure on the BdG equations.

arXiv:1707.07972•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Aug 3, 2017•5 citations

Equation for the superfluid gap obtained by coarse graining the Bogoliubov–de Gennes equations throughout the BCS-BEC crossover

Stefano Simonucci, Giancarlo Calvanese Strinati

We derive a nonlinear differential equation for the gap parameter of a superfluid Fermi system by performing a suitable coarse graining of the Bogoliubov--de Gennes (BdG) equations throughout the BCS-BEC crossover, with the aim of replacing the time-consuming solution of the original BdG equations by the simpler solution of this novel equation. We perform a favorable numerical test on the validity of this new equation over most of the temperature-coupling phase diagram, by an explicit comparison with the full solution of the original BdG equations for an isolated vortex. We also show that the new equation reduces both to the Ginzburg-Landau equation for Cooper pairs in weak coupling close to the critical temperature and to the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for composite bosons in strong coupling at low temperature.

arXiv:1402.4954•Physical Review B•Feb 19, 2014•28 citations

BCS-BEC crossover at finite temperature in the broken-symmetry phase

P. Pieri, L. Pisani, Giancarlo Calvanese Strinati

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 theory is implemented on physical grounds, by adopting a fermionic self-energy in the broken-symmetry phase that represents fermions coupled to superconducting fluctuations in weak coupling and to bosons described by the Bogoliubov theory in strong coupling. This extension of the theory beyond mean field proves important at finite temperature, to connect with the results in the normal phase. The order parameter, the chemical potential, and the single-particle spectral function are calculated numerically for a wide range of coupling and temperature. This enables us to assess the quantitative importance of superconducting fluctuations in the broken-symmetry phase over the whole BCS-BEC crossover. Our results are relevant to the possible realizations of this crossover with high-temperature cuprate superconductors and with ultracold fermionic atoms in a trap.

arXiv:cond-mat/0406099•Physical Review B•Sep 17, 2004•136 citations
Most theoretical treatments of inhomogeneous superconductivity/fermionic superfluidity have been based on the Bogoliubov-deGennes equations (or, else, on their various simplified forms), which implement a standard mean-field decoupling in the presence of spatial inhomogeneities. This approach is reliable even at finite temperature for weak interparticle attraction, when the Cooper pair size is much larger than the average interparticle distance (corresponding to the BCS limit of the BCS-BEC crossover). However, it loses accuracy for increasing attraction when the Cooper pair size becomes comparable or even smaller than the average interparticle distance (corresponding to the BEC limit of the BCS-BEC crossover), in particular when finite-temperature effects are considered. In these cases, inclusion of pairing fluctuations beyond mean field is required, a task that turns out to be especially difficult in the presence of inhomogeneities. Here, we implement the inclusion of pairing fluctuations directly on a coarse-graining version of the Bogoliubov-deGennes equations, which makes it simpler and faster to obtain a solution over the whole sector of the temperature-coupling phase diagram of the BCS-BEC crossover in the broken-symmetry phase. We apply this method in the presence of a supercurrent flow, such that problems related to the Josephson effect throughout the BCS-BEC crossover can be addressed under a variety of circumstances. This is relevant in the view of recent experimental data with ultracold Fermi atoms, to which the results of the present approach are shown to favorably compare in the companion paper.
A realistic description of the Josephson effect at finite temperature with ultracold Fermi gases embedded in nontrivial geometrical constraints (typically, a trap plus a barrier) requires appropriate consideration of pairing fluctuations that arise in inhomogeneous environments. Here, we apply the theoretical approach developed in a companion paper [Pisani et al., Phys. Rev. B 108, 214503 (2023)], where the inclusion of pairing fluctuations beyond mean field across the BCS--Bose-Einstein-condensate (BEC) crossover at finite temperature is combined with a detailed description of the gap parameter in a nontrivial geometry. In this way, we are able to account for the experimental results on the Josephson critical current, reported both at low temperature for various couplings across the BCS-BEC crossover and as a function of temperature at unitarity. Besides validating the theoretical approach of the companion paper, our numerical results reveal generic features of the Josephson effect which may not readily emerge from an analysis of corresponding experiments with condensed-matter samples owing to the unique intrinsic flexibility of experiments with ultracold gases.
The equation for the gap parameter represents the main equation of the pairing theory of superconductivity. Although it is formally defined through a single-particle property, physically, it reflects the pairing correlations between opposite-spin fermions. Here, we exploit this physical connection and cast the gap equation in an alternative form which explicitly highlights these two-particle correlations by showing that it is equivalent to a Hugenholtz-Pines condition for fermion pairs. At a formal level, a direct connection is established in this way between the treatment of the condensate fraction in condensate systems of fermions and bosons. At a practical level, the use of this alternative form of the gap equation is expected to make easier the inclusion of pairing fluctuations beyond mean field. As a proof-of-concept of the new method, we apply the modified form of the gap equation to the long-pending problem about the inclusion of the Gorkov-Melik-Barkhudarov correction across the whole BCS-BEC crossover, from the BCS limit of strongly overlapping Cooper pairs to the BEC limit of dilute composite bosons, and for all temperatures in the superfluid phase. Our numerical calculations yield excellent agreement with the recently determined experimental values of the gap parameter for an ultracold Fermi gas in the intermediate regime between BCS and BEC, as well as with the available quantum Monte Carlo data in the same regime.
A realistic description of the Josephson effect at finite temperature with ultra-cold Fermi gases embedded in nontrivial geometrical constraints (typically, a trap plus a barrier) requires appropriate consideration of pairing fluctuations that arise in inhomogeneous environments. Here, we apply the theoretical approach developed in the companion article [Pisani \emph{et al.}, Phys. Rev. B {\bf 108}, 214503 (2023)], where the inclusion of pairing fluctuations beyond mean field across the BCS-BEC crossover at finite temperature is combined with a detailed description of the gap parameter in a nontrivial geometry. In this way, we are able to account for the experimental results on the Josephson critical current, reported both at low temperature for various couplings across the BCS-BEC crossover and as a function of temperature at unitarity. Besides validating the theoretical approach of the companion article, our numerical results reveal generic features of the Josephson effect which may not readily emerge from an analysis of corresponding experiments with condensed-matter samples owing to the unique intrinsic flexibility of experiments with ultra-cold gases.
The properties are considered in detail of a nonlocal (integral) equation for the superconducting gap parameter, which is obtained by a coarse-graining procedure applied to the Bogoliubov-de Gennes (BdG) equations over the whole coupling-versus-temperature phase diagram associated with the superfluid phase. It is found that the limiting size of the coarse-graining procedure, which is dictated by the range of the kernel of this integral equation, corresponds to the size of the Cooper pairs over the whole coupling-versus-temperature phase diagram up to the critical temperature, even when Cooper pairs turn into composite bosons on the BEC side of the BCS-BEC crossover. A practical method is further implemented to solve numerically this integral equation in an efficient way, which is based on a novel algorithm for calculating the Fourier transforms. Application of this method to the case of an isolated vortex, throughout the BCS-BEC crossover and for all temperatures in the superfluid phase, helps clarifying the nature of the length scales associated with a single vortex and the kinds of details that are in practice disposed off by the coarse-graining procedure on the BdG equations.
We derive a nonlinear differential equation for the gap parameter of a superfluid Fermi system by performing a suitable coarse graining of the Bogoliubov--de Gennes (BdG) equations throughout the BCS-BEC crossover, with the aim of replacing the time-consuming solution of the original BdG equations by the simpler solution of this novel equation. We perform a favorable numerical test on the validity of this new equation over most of the temperature-coupling phase diagram, by an explicit comparison with the full solution of the original BdG equations for an isolated vortex. We also show that the new equation reduces both to the Ginzburg-Landau equation for Cooper pairs in weak coupling close to the critical temperature and to the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for composite bosons in strong coupling at low temperature.
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 theory is implemented on physical grounds, by adopting a fermionic self-energy in the broken-symmetry phase that represents fermions coupled to superconducting fluctuations in weak coupling and to bosons described by the Bogoliubov theory in strong coupling. This extension of the theory beyond mean field proves important at finite temperature, to connect with the results in the normal phase. The order parameter, the chemical potential, and the single-particle spectral function are calculated numerically for a wide range of coupling and temperature. This enables us to assess the quantitative importance of superconducting fluctuations in the broken-symmetry phase over the whole BCS-BEC crossover. Our results are relevant to the possible realizations of this crossover with high-temperature cuprate superconductors and with ultracold fermionic atoms in a trap.