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Phys. Rev. B 69, 104516 (2004) [9 pages]

Transport properties of clean and disordered superconductors in matrix field theory

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Lubo Zhou
Chemical Physics Program, Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA

T. R. Kirkpatrick
Institute for Physical Science and Technology, and Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA

Received 29 May 2003; published 22 March 2004

A comprehensive field theory is developed for superconductors with quenched disorder. We first show that the matrix field theory, used previously to describe a disordered Fermi liquid and a disordered itinerant ferromagnet, also has a saddle-point solution that describes a disordered superconductor. A general gap equation is obtained. We then expand about the saddle point to Gaussian order to explicitly obtain the physical correlation functions. The ultrasonic attenuation, number density susceptibility, spin-density susceptibility, and the electrical conductivity are used as examples. Results in the clean limit and in the disordered case are discussed, respectively. This formalism is expected to be a powerful tool to study the quantum phase transitions between the normal-metal state and the superconductor state.

© 2004 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.69.104516
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevB.69.104516
PACS:
74.81.Bd, 11.10.-z, 74.25.Ld, 74.25.Fy