We study the collective excitations of a system with local attractive interactions as a function of the coupling strength. The two-particle excitations are obtained in the random-phase approximation. For the strong-coupling limit we reproduce the excitation spectrum of a hard-core Bose gas, while in the weak-coupling limit we obtained a spectrum consistent with the BCS picture. The evolution of the excitation spectrum from the weak- to the strong-coupling limits is continuous. We briefly discuss the effect of these excitations in the thermodynamic properties of the system.
In the generalized random-phase approximation, introduced by Anderson and applied to the theory of superconductivity, existence of a collective excitation with vanishing excitation energy and momentum was known. It is shown to correspond to the creation of a Cooper pair. The creation operator satisfies a nonlinear operator equation which does not depend on the magnitude of order parameter. It is, therefore, independent of dynamics, that is, of the strength of the pairing interactions. Nevertheless it has the assumed matrix elements between a given state in an N-particle system and the corresponding state in the N+2 particle system. Discussions are confined to the BCS superconductor at absolute zero temperature.
Abstract One of the important steps leading to the successful formulation of the microscopic theory of superconductivity was the model calculation performed by Cooper (1956) which showed that two electrons, interacting above a filled Fermi sea, had a bound state in the presence of an arbitrarily weak attractive interaction. This chapter first examines Cooper’s calculation. The success of the Cooper model calculation in producing a bound state, with its implication that a proper many-body theory would contain a gap in the excitation spectrum, strongly suggests that the ground state wave function should be constructed from pairs of electrons. However, it is difficult to perform calculations using the many-body pair wave function from Cooper’s model. The chapter then introduces the wave function proposed by Bardeen, Cooper, and Schrieffer (BCS) as an alternative.
The pseudogap state of cuprate high-temperature superconductors has been often viewed as either a yet unknown competing order or a precursor state to superconductivity. While awaiting the resolution of the pseudogap problem in cuprates, we demonstrate that local pairing fluctuations, vortex liquid dynamics, and other precursor phenomena can emerge quite generally whenever fermionic excitations remain gapped across the superconducting transition, regardless of the gap origin. Our choice of a tractable model is a lattice band insulator with short-range attractive interactions between fermions in the
s-wave channel. An effective crossover between Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) and Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) regimes can be identified in any band insulator above two dimensions, while in two dimensions only the BEC regime exists. The superconducting transition is ``unconventional'' (non-pair-breaking) in the BEC regime, identified by either the bosonic mean field or
XY universality class. The insulator adjacent to the superconductor in the BEC regime is a bosonic Mott insulator of Cooper pairs, which may be susceptible to charge density wave ordering. We construct a function of the many-body excitation spectrum whose nonanalytic changes define a sharp distinction between band and Mott insulators. The corresponding ``second-order transition'' can be observed out of equilibrium by driving a Cooper pair laser in the Mott insulator. We explicitly show that the gap for charged bosonic excitations lies below the threshold for Cooper pair breakup in any BEC regime, despite quantum fluctuations. Our discussion ends with a view of possible consequences for cuprates, where antinodal pair dynamics has certain features in common with our simple
s-wave picture.
The spectral properties of a mixture of bosons hybridized with fermion pairs are studied in the superconducting state. Such a model exhibits two limiting behaviors. One is reminiscent of a BCS system, provided that the total concentration n of particles is below a certain critical concentration
nc, in which case bosons exist only in thermally excited states. The other limit for n\ensuremath{\geqslant}
nc describes a situation largely controlled by the condensation of the bosons. The variation of the single-boson as well as collective excitations as a function of n and for the entire temperature regime from T=0 K to
Tc will be discussed, both with and without long-range Coulomb interaction between the charge carriers. The method for calculation applied here is based on the dielectric formalism and the use of Ward identities, currently used in the theory of the interacting Bose gas, which allows us to derive the density and current correlation functions consistent with local charge-current conservation laws. In the absence of a Coulomb interaction the behavior of the system is characterized by the existence of a sound-wave-like branch in the Bose single-particle and collective excitation spectrum. In the BCS regime the sound velocity is proportional to the Fermi velocity while in the Bose regime it is proportional to the strength of the boson-fermion hybridization and decreases with the superfluid density as we approach
Tc. In the presence of a long-range Coulomb interaction and in the Bose regime one observes, besides the usual optical plasmon mode at high frequency and corresponding to in-phase density oscillation of the two subsytems, an out-of-phase collective mode in the two particle continuum just above the gap. Moreover, upon approaching
Tc a relatively well-defined quasiparticle feature starts to emerge within the gap and is seen in both the Bose single-particle excitation and the density oscillation spectrum. In the BCS regime, due to the very small number of occupied bosonic states, the low-energy quasiparticle features are absent. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
The method of canonical transformations is generalized to Fermi systems and forms the basis of a method for investigating the problem of superconductivity. Starting from Frohlich's Hanmiltonian, the energy of the superconducting ground state and the one-Fermion and collective excitations corresponding to this state are obtained. It turns out that the final formulas for the ground state and one-Fermion excitations recently obtained by Bardeen, Cooper, and Schrieffer are correct in the first approximation. The physical picture appears to be closer to the one proposed by Schafroth, Butler, and Blatt. The effect on superconductivity of the Coulomb interaction between the electrons is analyzed in detail. A criterion for the superfiuidity of a Fermi system with a four-line vertex Hamiltonian is established. (auth)