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Electromagnetic Superconductivity of Vacuum Induced by Strong Magnetic Field

  • Chapter
Strongly Interacting Matter in Magnetic Fields

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Physics ((LNP,volume 871))

Abstract

The quantum vacuum may become an electromagnetic superconductor in the presence of a strong external magnetic field of the order of 1016 Tesla. The magnetic field of the required strength (and even stronger) are expected to be generated for very short times in ultraperipheral collisions of lead ions at the Large Hadron Collider. The superconducting properties of the new phase appear as a result of a magnetic-field-assisted condensation of quark–antiquark pairs with quantum numbers of electrically charged ρ ± mesons. We discuss similarities and differences between the suggested superconducting state of the quantum vacuum, a conventional superconductivity and the Schwinger pair creation. We argue qualitatively and quantitatively why the superconducting state should be a natural ground state of the vacuum at the sufficiently strong magnetic field. We demonstrate the existence of the superconducting phase using both the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model and an effective bosonic model based vector meson dominance (the ρ-meson electrodynamics). We discuss various properties of the new phase such as absence of Meissner effect, anisotropy of superconductivity, spatial inhomogeneity of ground state, emergence of a neutral superfluid component in the ground state and presence of new topological vortices in the quark–antiquark condensates.

This work was supported by Grant No. ANR-10-JCJC-0408 HYPERMAG.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We briefly discuss an analogy between the magnetic-field-induced vacuum superconductivity and the Schwinger effect in Sect. 6.2.2.5, page 152.

  2. 2.

    Since the magnetic flux coming through the superconductor’s boundary is a conserved quantity, the superconductor expels it from the superconductor’s bulk into thin vortexlike structures.

  3. 3.

    Without loss of generality we consider the singly-charged bosons Φ instead of the usual doubly-charged Cooper pairs and we use a relativistic description of superconductivity.

  4. 4.

    A philosophically similar phenomenon, a color-flavor locking, is realized in a different context of the color superconductivity in a dense quark matter [73, 74].

  5. 5.

    Here we omit all terms with vanishing condensates as well as all kinetic terms.

  6. 6.

    We have estimated the critical field only approximately since the phenomenological values of the NJL parameters G S,V are not known precisely [76]. Moreover, subtleties of the renormalization of the effective dimensionally reduced (1+1)-dimensional theory embedded in 3+1 dimensions provide us with an additional uncertainty.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CNRS, Laboratoire de Mathématiques et Physique Théorique, Fédération Denis Poisson, Parc de Grandmont, Université François-Rabelais, 37200, Tours, France

    M. N. Chernodub

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Gent, Krijgslaan 281, S9, 9000, Gent, Belgium

    M. N. Chernodub

  3. ITEP, B. Cheremushkinskaya 25, 117218, Moscow, Russia

    M. N. Chernodub

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  1. M. N. Chernodub
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Correspondence to M. N. Chernodub .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Stony Brook University, Nicolls Rd 100, Stony Brook, 11794, New York, USA

    Dmitri Kharzeev

  2. Instituto de Fisica Teorica UAM/CSIC, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Nicolas Cabrera 13-15, Madrid, 28049, Spain

    Karl Landsteiner

  3. Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technische Universität Wien, Wiedner Haupstr. 8, Wien, 1040, Austria

    Andreas Schmitt

  4. Physics Department (MC 273), University of Illinois at Chicago, West Taylor Street 845Rm 2236, Chicago, 60607, Illinois, USA

    Ho-Ung Yee

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Chernodub, M.N. (2013). Electromagnetic Superconductivity of Vacuum Induced by Strong Magnetic Field. In: Kharzeev, D., Landsteiner, K., Schmitt, A., Yee, HU. (eds) Strongly Interacting Matter in Magnetic Fields. Lecture Notes in Physics, vol 871. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37305-3_6

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