2020/07/25 by A. Davydov, A. Sanna, C. Pellegrini +3 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.102.214508
published as Phys. Rev. B 102, 214508 (2020)
arxiv created 2020/07/25 · arxiv updated 2021/01/04
We extend the two leading methods for the ab initio computational descrip tion of phonon-mediated superconductors, namely Eliashberg theory and density fu nctional theory for superconductors (SCDFT), to include plasmonic effects. Furth ermore, we introduce a hybrid formalism in which the Eliashberg approximation fo r the electron-phonon coupling is combined with the SCDFT treatment of the dynam ically screened Coulomb interaction. The methods have been tested on a set of we ll-known conventional superconductors by studying how the plasmon contribution a ffects the phononic mechanism in determining the critical temperature (\tc). Our simulations show that plasmonic SCDFT leads to a good agreement between predict ed and measured \tc's, whereas Eliashberg theory considerably overestimates the plasmon-mediated pairing and, therefore, \tc. The hybrid approach, on the other hand, gives results close to SCDFT and overall in excellent agreement with exper iments.