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Bulletin of the American Physical Society

Multiple Pairing in the BCS Model

Jingtao Fan, YURIY M. MALOZOVSKY

Published Mar 12, 2008• 0 citations
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Abstract

We study Cooper's paring for more than two particles in terms of the BCS model. We consider multiple pairing in terms of the BCS Hamiltonian in a quiescent Fermi sea model and in the BCS ground state. Although there is no interaction between Cooper's pairs in terms of the BCS Hamiltonian, yet we show that four particles are paired and form a bound state in the singlet state with just twice the bound state energy of a single Cooper's pair. Four-particle bound state quartet only exists as a result of the Pauli principle and the sharp Fermi edge. We have also shown that the smearing of the Fermi edge due to A ( k ) as it is in the BCS ground state weakens the pairing of either two or four particles. We show that in the particle-hole channel there exists the multiple particlehole resonance for four particles and four holes in a quiescent Fermi sea model similar to the resonance of two particles and two holes. There is no the particle-hole resonance in the BCS ground state as shown, which means that the particle-hole resonance is removed by A ( k ) due to smearing of the Fermi distribution. The wave function for the multiple pairing model is discussed as well.

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We study Cooper's paring for more than two particles in terms of the BCS model. We consider multiple pairing in terms of the BCS Hamiltonian in a quiescent Fermi sea model and in the BCS ground state. Although there is no interaction between Cooper's pairs in terms of the BCS Hamiltonian, yet we show that four particles are paired and form a bound state in the singlet state with just twice the bound state energy of a single Cooper's pair. Four-particle bound state - quartet only exists as a result of the Pauli principle and the sharp Fermi edge. We have also shown that the smearing of the Fermi edge due to Δ(k) as it is in the BCS ground state weakens the pairing of either two or four particles. We show that in the particle-hole channel there exists the multiple particle-hole resonance for four particles and four holes in a quiescent Fermi sea model similar to the resonance of two particles and two holes. There is no the particle-hole resonance in the BCS ground state as shown, which means that the particle-hole resonance is removed by Δ(k) due to smearing of the Fermi distribution. The wave function for the multiple pairing model is discussed as well.

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We review Cooper pairing starting from its simplest, original 1956 version of two electrons interacting above the Fermi sea of an ideal Fermi gas (IFG). The two-electron interaction assumed extensively (if not exclusively), is the attractive two-parameter Cooper, and then BCS, model interactions. Hole Cooper pairs (CPs) and electron-hole CPs are then included along with the initial electron-CPs in terms of the single-fermion Green functions implied by the Bethe-Salpeter (BS) integral equation in the ladder approximation. A purely-imaginary CP energy "instability" is recovered that is well-documented in the literature at least since the late 1950's. A novel interpretation of this instability is that an unperturbed Hamiltonian different from the IFG one first used by Cooper suffices to obtain meaningful CPs. Instead of the IFG sea, a BCS-correlated Fermi "sea" used in the BS equation interpreted as the associated unperturbed Hamiltonian leads to real CP energies (with small imaginary terms implying damping). We survey how this has been achieved in 1D, 2D and 3D, and give a more detailed treatment in 2D. A vital distinction is that the original and generalized CPs are true bosons in contrast with BCS pairs that are not ordinary bosons but rather "hard-core bosons" as they do not obey strict Bose commutation rules. Another important common element of the original or generalized CPs (particularly in 2D where ordinary Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) does not occur) is their linear dispersion relation in leading order in the total (or, center-of-mass) momentum power-series expansion of the CP energy. This theory encompasses, in principle, all empirically known superconductors including quasi-2D superconductors such as cuprates and the ET organic compounds, as well as quasi-1D ones such as the organometallic Bechgaard salts and nanotubes.

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Relation between the binding energy of a pair of electrons in Cooper's configuration and the magnitude of the attractive interaction between them is investigated theoretically for a two-dimensional electron gas when the electron pair has (a) zero and (b) finite center of mass momentum (CMM) first (i) in the background of a passive Fermi sea and (ii) with inclusion of the effect of Pauli exclusion principle in the presence of an active Fermi sea, at zero temperature. In the Cooper's approach (Cooper 1956 Phys. Rev. 104 1189) two pairing electrons are considered above the Fermi sea. Due to Pauli exclusion principle, these two electrons are forbidden to go into the states whose energies are less than the Fermi energy. Consequently, the role of the electrons which form the Fermi sea is passive in formation of electron pair (Fujita and Godoy 2001 Theory of High Temperature Superconductivity (Kluwer Academic Publishers)). However, in the case of an active Fermi sea, implying possible presence of multiple pairs of electrons coming out of the Fermi sea, the two electrons will have less available region in the momentum space for pair formation due to the Pauli blocking effect. In both the situations, threshold values of attractive interaction are found to exist to bind the electrons having finite CMM even with respect to the Fermi energy while with arbitrarily small value of attractive interaction they can be bound only in the case of zero CMM and that too in the presence of a passive Fermi sea. However, the presence of an active Fermi sea strongly opposes the pair formation having lower CMM. Furthermore, raising the range of the attractive interaction below and above the Fermi surface makes the pair formation more difficult due to enhanced Pauli blocking in this case. In the case of a passive Fermi sea however, with the increase in the range of the attractive interaction it becomes easier for the electron pairs to be in both Cooper pair state (CP) and true bound state (TB). These results are totally distinct from those obtained by Randeria et al (1989 Phys. Rev. Lett. 62 981, 1990 Phys. Rev. B 41 327) that a fermionic bound state in true vacuum is a necessary and sufficient condition for the Cooper pairing instability in the presence of a passive Fermi sea, independent of attractive interaction strength implying that for a potential which is attractive everywhere in two dimension, a two-body bound state exists for an arbitrarily weak attraction. Our calculations show, in the mean field approximation, that co-existence of TB state and CP state with various CMMs can occur only beyond a critical attractive interaction strength. This could lead to the formation of incoherent pairs even under strong coupling situation, which may hint onto the pseudo gap formation leading to some of the exotic features in the anomalous normal state seen in some of the exotic superconductors.

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The Microscopic Theory of Superconductivity: Cooper Pairing and the Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer Theory

John B. Ketterson

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.

•Sep 8, 2016•0 citations
We study Cooper's paring for more than two particles in terms of the BCS model. We consider multiple pairing in terms of the BCS Hamiltonian in a quiescent Fermi sea model and in the BCS ground state. Although there is no interaction between Cooper's pairs in terms of the BCS Hamiltonian, yet we show that four particles are paired and form a bound state in the singlet state with just twice the bound state energy of a single Cooper's pair. Four-particle bound state quartet only exists as a result of the Pauli principle and the sharp Fermi edge. We have also shown that the smearing of the Fermi edge due to A ( k ) as it is in the BCS ground state weakens the pairing of either two or four particles. We show that in the particle-hole channel there exists the multiple particlehole resonance for four particles and four holes in a quiescent Fermi sea model similar to the resonance of two particles and two holes. There is no the particle-hole resonance in the BCS ground state as shown, which means that the particle-hole resonance is removed by A ( k ) due to smearing of the Fermi distribution. The wave function for the multiple pairing model is discussed as well.
We study Cooper's paring for more than two particles in terms of the BCS model. We consider multiple pairing in terms of the BCS Hamiltonian in a quiescent Fermi sea model and in the BCS ground state. Although there is no interaction between Cooper's pairs in terms of the BCS Hamiltonian, yet we show that four particles are paired and form a bound state in the singlet state with just twice the bound state energy of a single Cooper's pair. Four-particle bound state - quartet only exists as a result of the Pauli principle and the sharp Fermi edge. We have also shown that the smearing of the Fermi edge due to Δ(k) as it is in the BCS ground state weakens the pairing of either two or four particles. We show that in the particle-hole channel there exists the multiple particle-hole resonance for four particles and four holes in a quiescent Fermi sea model similar to the resonance of two particles and two holes. There is no the particle-hole resonance in the BCS ground state as shown, which means that the particle-hole resonance is removed by Δ(k) due to smearing of the Fermi distribution. The wave function for the multiple pairing model is discussed as well.
A Bethe-Salpeter treatment of Cooper pairs (CPs) based on an ideal Fermi gas (IFG) "sea"' yields the familiar negative-energy, two-particle bound-state if two-hole CPs are ignored, but is meaningless otherwise as it gives purely-imaginary energies. However, when based on the BCS ground state, legitimate two-particle "moving" CPs emerge but as positive-energy, finite-lifetime resonances for nonzero center-of-mass momentum, with a \textit{linear}dispersion leading term. Bose-Einstein condensation of such pairs may thus occur in exactly two dimensions as it cannot with quadratic dispersion.
We review Cooper pairing starting from its simplest, original 1956 version of two electrons interacting above the Fermi sea of an ideal Fermi gas (IFG). The two-electron interaction assumed extensively (if not exclusively), is the attractive two-parameter Cooper, and then BCS, model interactions. Hole Cooper pairs (CPs) and electron-hole CPs are then included along with the initial electron-CPs in terms of the single-fermion Green functions implied by the Bethe-Salpeter (BS) integral equation in the ladder approximation. A purely-imaginary CP energy "instability" is recovered that is well-documented in the literature at least since the late 1950's. A novel interpretation of this instability is that an unperturbed Hamiltonian different from the IFG one first used by Cooper suffices to obtain meaningful CPs. Instead of the IFG sea, a BCS-correlated Fermi "sea" used in the BS equation interpreted as the associated unperturbed Hamiltonian leads to real CP energies (with small imaginary terms implying damping). We survey how this has been achieved in 1D, 2D and 3D, and give a more detailed treatment in 2D. A vital distinction is that the original and generalized CPs are true bosons in contrast with BCS pairs that are not ordinary bosons but rather "hard-core bosons" as they do not obey strict Bose commutation rules. Another important common element of the original or generalized CPs (particularly in 2D where ordinary Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) does not occur) is their linear dispersion relation in leading order in the total (or, center-of-mass) momentum power-series expansion of the CP energy. This theory encompasses, in principle, all empirically known superconductors including quasi-2D superconductors such as cuprates and the ET organic compounds, as well as quasi-1D ones such as the organometallic Bechgaard salts and nanotubes.
Relation between the binding energy of a pair of electrons in Cooper's configuration and the magnitude of the attractive interaction between them is investigated theoretically for a two-dimensional electron gas when the electron pair has (a) zero and (b) finite center of mass momentum (CMM) first (i) in the background of a passive Fermi sea and (ii) with inclusion of the effect of Pauli exclusion principle in the presence of an active Fermi sea, at zero temperature. In the Cooper's approach (Cooper 1956 Phys. Rev. 104 1189) two pairing electrons are considered above the Fermi sea. Due to Pauli exclusion principle, these two electrons are forbidden to go into the states whose energies are less than the Fermi energy. Consequently, the role of the electrons which form the Fermi sea is passive in formation of electron pair (Fujita and Godoy 2001 Theory of High Temperature Superconductivity (Kluwer Academic Publishers)). However, in the case of an active Fermi sea, implying possible presence of multiple pairs of electrons coming out of the Fermi sea, the two electrons will have less available region in the momentum space for pair formation due to the Pauli blocking effect. In both the situations, threshold values of attractive interaction are found to exist to bind the electrons having finite CMM even with respect to the Fermi energy while with arbitrarily small value of attractive interaction they can be bound only in the case of zero CMM and that too in the presence of a passive Fermi sea. However, the presence of an active Fermi sea strongly opposes the pair formation having lower CMM. Furthermore, raising the range of the attractive interaction below and above the Fermi surface makes the pair formation more difficult due to enhanced Pauli blocking in this case. In the case of a passive Fermi sea however, with the increase in the range of the attractive interaction it becomes easier for the electron pairs to be in both Cooper pair state (CP) and true bound state (TB). These results are totally distinct from those obtained by Randeria et al (1989 Phys. Rev. Lett. 62 981, 1990 Phys. Rev. B 41 327) that a fermionic bound state in true vacuum is a necessary and sufficient condition for the Cooper pairing instability in the presence of a passive Fermi sea, independent of attractive interaction strength implying that for a potential which is attractive everywhere in two dimension, a two-body bound state exists for an arbitrarily weak attraction. Our calculations show, in the mean field approximation, that co-existence of TB state and CP state with various CMMs can occur only beyond a critical attractive interaction strength. This could lead to the formation of incoherent pairs even under strong coupling situation, which may hint onto the pseudo gap formation leading to some of the exotic features in the anomalous normal state seen in some of the exotic superconductors.
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.