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arXiv · 1404.0571

BCS instabilities of electron stars to holographic superconductors

Yan Liu·Koenraad Schalm·Ya-Wen Sun·Jan Zaanen
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Abstract

We study fermion pairing and condensation towards an ordered state in strongly coupled quantum critical systems with a holographic AdS/CFT dual. On the gravity side this is modeled by a system of charged fermion interacting through a BCS coupling. At finite density such a system has a BCS instability. We combine the relativistic version of mean-field BCS with the semi-classical fluid approximation for the many-body state of fermions. The resulting groundstate is the AdS equivalent of a charged neutron star with a superconducting core. The spectral function of the fermions confirms that the ground state is ordered through the condensation of the pair operator. A natural variant of the BCS star is shown to exist where the gap field couples Stueckelberg-like to the AdS Maxwell field. This enhances the tendency of the system to superconduct.

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Yan Liu, Koenraad Schalm, Ya-Wen Sun, Jan Zaanen. 2014-06-03. BCS instabilities of electron stars to holographic superconductors. https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep05(2014)122

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