542 research outputs found
Inequivalent representations of commutator or anticommutator rings of field operators and their applications
Hamiltonian of a system in quantum field theory can give rise to infinitely
many partition functions which correspond to infinitely many inequivalent
representations of the canonical commutator or anticommutator rings of field
operators. This implies that the system can theoretically exist in infinitely
many Gibbs states. The system resides in the Gibbs state which corresponds to
its minimal Helmholtz free energy at a given range of the thermodynamic
variables. Individual inequivalent representations are associated with
different thermodynamic phases of the system. The BCS Hamiltonian of
superconductivity is chosen to be an explicit example for the demonstration of
the important role of inequivalent representations in practical applications.
Its analysis from the inequivalent representations' point of view has led to a
recognition of a novel type of the superconducting phase transition.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figure
Specific heat of heavy fermion CePd2Si2 in high magnetic fields
We report specific heat measurements on the heavy fermion compound CePd2Si2
in magnetic fields up to 16 T and in the temperature range 1.4-16 K. A sharp
peak in the specific heat signals the antiferromagnetic transition at T_N ~ 9.3
K in zero field. The transition is found to shift to lower temperatures when a
magnetic field is applied along the crystallographic a-axis, while a field
applied parallel to the tetragonal c-axis does not affect the transition. The
magnetic contribution to the specific heat below T_N is well described by a sum
of a linear electronic term and an antiferromagnetic spin wave contribution.
Just below T_N, an additional positive curvature, especially at high fields,
arises most probably due to thermal fluctuations. The field dependence of the
coefficient of the low temperature linear term, gamma_0, extracted from the
fits shows a maximum at about 6 T, at the point where an anomaly was detected
in susceptibility measurements. The relative field dependence of both T_N and
the magnetic entropy at T_N scales as [1-(B/B_0)^2] for B // a, suggesting the
disappearance of antiferromagnetism at B_0 ~ 42 T. The expected suppression of
the antiferromagnetic transition temperature to zero makes the existence of a
magnetic quantum critical point possible.Comment: to be published in Journal of Physics: Condensed Matte
Superconductivity mediated by a soft phonon mode: specific heat, resistivity, thermal expansion and magnetization of YB6
The superconductor YB6 has the second highest critical temperature Tc among
the boride family MBn. We report measurements of the specific heat,
resistivity, magnetic susceptibility and thermal expansion from 2 to 300 K,
using a single crystal with Tc = 7.2 K. The superconducting gap is
characteristic of medium-strong coupling. The specific heat, resistivity and
expansivity curves are deconvolved to yield approximations of the phonon
density of states, the spectral electron-phonon scattering function and the
phonon density of states weighted by the frequency-dependent Grueneisen
parameter respectively. Lattice vibrations extend to high frequencies >100 meV,
but a dominant Einstein-like mode at ~8 meV, associated with the vibrations of
yttrium ions in oversized boron cages, appears to provide most of the
superconducting coupling and gives rise to an unusual temperature behavior of
several observable quantities. A surface critical field Hc3 is also observed.Comment: 29 pages, 5 tables, 17 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys.
Rev.
Superconducting Diamagnetic Fluctuations in MgB2
The fluctuating diamagnetic magnetization Mfl at constant field H as a
function of temperature and the isothermal magnetization Mfl vs H are measured
in MgB2, above the superconducting transition temperature. The expressions for
Mfl in randomly oriented powders are derived in the Gaussian approximation of
local Ginzburg-Landau theory and used for the analysis of the data. The scaled
magnetization Mfl/H^{1/2}*T is found to be field dependent. In the limit of
evanescent field the behaviour for Gaussian fluctuations is obeyed while for
H>~ 100 Oe the field tends to suppress the fluctuating pairs, with a field
dependence of Mfl close to the one expected when short wavelength fluctuations
and non-local electrodynamic effects are taken into account. Our data, besides
providing the isothermal magnetization curves for T>Tc(0) in a BCS-type
superconductor such as MgB2, evidence an enhancement of the fluctuating
diamagnetism which is related to the occurrence in this new superconductor of
an anisotropic spectrum of the superconducting fluctuations.Comment: Tex file, 4 pages, 3 ps figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
SO(5) superconductor in a Zeeman magnetic field: Phase diagram and thermodynamic properties
In this paper we present calculations of the SO(5) quantum rotor theory of
high-T superconductivity in Zeeman magnetic field. We use the spherical
approach for five-component quantum rotors in three-dimensional lattice to
obtain formulas for critical lines, free energy, entropy and specific heat and
present temperature dependences of these quantities for different values of
magnetic field. Our results are in qualitative agreement with relevant
experiments on high-T cuprates.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. B, see http://prb.aps.or
Unusual effects of anisotropy on the specific heat of ceramic and single crystal MgB2
The two-gap structure in the superconducting state of MgB_2 gives rise to
unusual thermodynamic properties which depart markedly from the isotropic
single-band BCS model, both in their temperature- and field dependence. We
report and discuss measurements of the specific heat up to 16 T on ceramic, and
up to 14 T on single crystal samples, which demonstrate these effects in the
bulk. The behavior in zero field is described in terms of two characteristic
temperatures, a crossover temperature Tc_pi ~ 13 K, and a critical temperature
Tc = Tc_sigma ~ 38 K, whereas the mixed-state specific heat requires three
characteristic fields, an isotropic crossover field Hc2_pi ~ 0.35 T, and an
anisotropic upper critical field with extreme values Hc2_sigma_c ~ 3.5 T and
Hc2_sigma_ab ~ 19 T, where the indexes \pi and \sigma refer to the 3D and 2D
sheets of the Fermi surface. Irradiation-induced interband scattering tends to
move the gaps toward a common value, and increases the upper critical field up
to ~ 28 T when Tc = 30 K.Comment: 31 pages, 9 figures. Accepted in the Physica C special issue on MgB
Thermodynamic transitions in inhomogeneous d-wave superconductors
We study the spectral and thermodynamic properties of inhomogeneous d-wave
superconductors within a model where the inhomogeneity originates from atomic
scale pair disorder. This assumption has been shown to be consistent with the
small charge and large gap modulations observed by scanning tunnelling
spectroscopy (STS) on BSCCO. Here we calculate the specific heat within the
same model, and show that it gives a semi-quantitative description of the
transition width in this material. This model therefore provides a consistent
picture of both surface sensitive spectroscopy and bulk thermodynamic
properties.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Phase fluctuations and the pseudogap in YBa2Cu3Ox
The thermodynamics of the superconducting transition is studied as a function
of doping using high-resolution expansivity data of YBa2Cu3Ox single crystals
and Monte-Carlo simulations of the anisotropic 3D-XY model. We directly show
that Tc of underdoped YBa2Cu3Ox is strongly suppressed from its mean-field
value (Tc-MF) by phase fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter. For
overdoped YBa2Cu3Ox fluctuation effects are greatly reduced and Tc ~ Tc-MF . We
find that Tc-MF exhibits a similar doping dependence as the pseudogap energy,
naturally suggesting that the pseudogap arises from phase-incoherent Cooper
pairing.Comment: 9 pages, 3 Figure
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