Nonequilibrium Dynamics of Weakly and Strongly Paired Superconductors

V. Gurarie

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.075301

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Nonequilibrium Dynamics of Weakly and Strongly Paired Superconductors

V. Gurarie

DOI 10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.075301 · Physical Review Letters

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Abstract

We study small oscillations of the order parameter in weakly and strongly paired superconductors driven slightly out of equilibrium, in the collisionless approximation. While it was known for quite some time that the amplitude of the oscillations in a weakly paired superconductor decays as t−1/2, we show that in a superconductor sufficiently strongly paired so that its fermions form bound states usually referred to as molecules, these oscillations decay as t−3/2. The transition between these two regimes happens when the chemical potential of the superconductor vanishes; thus, the behavior of the oscillations can be used to distinguish weakly and strongly paired superconductors. Finally, we interpret the result in the strongly paired superconductor as the probability of the molecular decay as a function of time.