2002/10/01 by Georgios Varelogiannis, Varelogiannis, Georgios, Michel Heritier +2
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #FOS: Physical sciences #Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) #Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) #cond-mat.str-el #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0210031
arxiv created 2002/10/01 · openalex publication_date 2002/10/01 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2019/06/27 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
High-Tc superconductivity is unconventional because the gap is not isotropic as in simple metals but has dx2-y2 symmetry with lines of nodes. In a fascinating thermal transport experiment on a high-Tc superconductor, Krishana et al \citeKrishana have reported mysterious magnetic field induced first order transitions from a superconducting state with gap nodes to a state without gap nodes. We show here that this is an experimental manifestation of a novel \it macroscopic quantum phenomenon induced by the magnetic field, qualitatively different from the usual quantum Hall effects. It corresponds to the \it quantization of the superfluid density in a superconductor with gap nodes due to the generation of Confined Field Induced Density Waves (CFIDW) in the node regions of the Fermi surface. The Landau numbers L are not sufficient to index these macroscopic quantum states and the addition of a new quantum number ζ is necessary. Distinct qualitative implications of this non-integer |L,ζ> quantization are also evident in a number of recent unexplained experimental reports in the cuprates.