9 pages, no figures, for more information, please see http://www.fen.bilkent.edu.tr/~yjkim BODY \documentstyle[aps,preprint,prb]{revtex} %\documentstyle[aps,preprint,prb] \begin{document} %\pagestyle{empty} \def\vk{\vec k} \def\br{{\bf r}} \title{\bf Absence of the Vortex Solution in Gor'kov's Formalism} \author{Yong-Jihn Kim } \address{Department of Physics, Bilkent University,\\ 06533 Bilkent, Ankara, Turkey} \maketitle \begin{abstract} It is shown that the Abrikosov's vortex solution or its corresponding two-particle pair potential is not the solution of the self-consistency equation in Gor'kov's formalism. Since the self-consistency equation leads to a superposition of different types of off-diagonal long-range order (ODLRO) instead of one type of ODLRO only, it may not handle the vortex problem appropriately. A possible resolution is suggested. \end{abstract} \vskip 5pc PACS numbers: 74.50.+r, 74.60.-w, 74.60.Ec \vspace{1pc} \noindent \vfill\eject \section{\bf Introduction} Recent STM experiments$^{1-3}$ show that the microscopic structures of the vortex state in type II and high $T_{c}$ superconductors are much more complicated than expected. In particular, the vortex core and the lattice structure depend strongly on the microscopic details of the samples. For instance, using $NbSe_{2}$ samples Hess and his collaborators$^{1,2}$ found unexpected zero-bias peaks and sixfold star-shaped structures in the vortex core states. These experiments revived much theoretical interest.$^{4-6}$ However, a satisfactory quantitative explanation is still not available.$^{7}$ Maggio-Aprile et al.$^{3}$ also reported that the vortices in $YBa_{2}Cu_{3}O_{7-\delta}$ arrange in an oblique lattice, which remains unexplained. On theoretical side, Thouless et al.$^{8}$ noted that there is still a lot of controversy in the dynamics of vortices. It seems that there is some fundamental problem in our theoretical understanding of the vortex state in superconductors. In this paper, we point out that Gor'kov's Green's function formalism or the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations may not handle the vortex problem properly, since the self-consistency equation gives rise to an incoherent superposition of different types of off-diagonal long-range-order (ODLRO) instead of a coherent vortex state. The same problem was already found in Gor'kov and Galitskii's (GG)$^{9}$ solution for the d-wave pairing BCS theory. GG allowed a superposition of several distinct types of the off-diagonal long-range-order, which was proven to be invalid.$^{10-14}$ As Anderson noted,$^{13}$ this problem occurs in many cases even in discussing flux quantization. In fact, it also hindered correct understanding of the effects of magnetic impurities$^{15,16}$ and weak localization$^{17-20}$ on superconductivity. Balian, Nosanow, and Werthamer$^{11}$ showed that this problem is caused by the difficulty in the method of Green's functions for a manybody system. It is inspiring to remind their statement: {\sl Thus the Green's function method as usually formulated is not a complete dynamical description of the system, and requires in addition, some criterion to distinguish these extraneous solutions from the correct one}. The criterion may be provided by the physical constraint of the Anomalous Green's function, which is nothing but the pairing constraint.$^{17,18}$ The vortex problem may be very complicated; so we use the following simplifications which are not crucial in our discussion though. (i) We consider only the lowest Landau Level in the presence of the very high magnetic fields, i.e., \begin{equation} \omega_{c}>\omega_{D}, \end{equation} where $\omega_{c}$ and $\omega_{D}$ are the cyclotron frequency and the Debye frequency, respectively. (ii) The Zeeman splitting is disregarded. (iii) We use the Landau gauge where \begin{equation} A_{x}=0, A_{y}=Bx. \end{equation} The z-axis motion will be suppressed. (iv) We consider the self-consistency equation near $T_{c}$. \section{Landau Levels and Abrikosov's Vortex Solution} We consider a rectangular sample with sides $L_{x}$ and $L_{y}$. For the Hamiltonian \begin{equation} H= {p_{y}^{2}\over 2m} + {(p_{x}-{eBx\over c})^{2}\over 2m}, \end{equation} the eigenfunctions are given by \begin{equation} \phi_{n}(x,y)=N_{o}e^{iqny}exp[-(x-qn\ell^{2})^{2}/2\ell^{2}], \end{equation} where \begin{equation} \ell=\sqrt{\hbar c/eB}, \end{equation} and \begin{equation} q={2\pi\over L_{y}}. \end{equation} Here $N_{o}$ is a normalization constant and we have used the periodic boundary condition along the y-direction. If the x dimensions of the system are confined to $-L_{x}/2 \end{equation} Second, we consider the pair potential for $n=1$ in Eq. (14), \begin{equation} \Delta(x,y)\sim \Delta_{1}e^{iqy}exp[-(x-q\ell^{2}/2)^{2}/\ell^{2}]. \end{equation} It is straightforward to show that this pair potential leads to pairing between $\phi_{n}\uparrow$ and $\phi_{-n+1}\downarrow$ and the resulting transition temperature $T_{c}'$ is determined by \begin{equation} 1=VT_{c}'{N_{o}^{2}\over \sqrt{2}} \sum_{\omega}\sum_{n} {e^{-2(n-1/2)^{2}q^{2}\ell^{2}}\over \omega^{2}+\epsilon_{o}^{2}}. \end{equation} In the BCS theory, the corresponding pairing matrix elements are \begin{eqnarray} V_{nn'} &=& V\int \phi_{n}^{*}(r) \phi_{-n+1}^{*}(r) \phi_{-n'+1}(r) \phi_{n'}(r) d{r}\nonumber\\ &=& V{N_{o}^{2}\over \sqrt{2}}e^{-(n-1/2)^{2}q^{2}\ell^{2}} e^{(n'-1/2)^{2}q^{2}\ell^{2}}. \end{eqnarray} Note that the transition temperatures may be extremely small due to the exponential factors and $T_{c}$ and $T_{c}'$ are different. The ground state is now \begin{equation} \tilde{\phi}_{BCS}'=\prod_{n}[u_{n}+v_{n}(\phi_{n}\uparrow, \phi_{-n+1}\downarrow)] |0>. \end{equation} If we combine the two solutions, we obtain the pair potential \begin{equation} \Delta(x,y)\sim \Delta_{0}exp(-x^{2}/\ell^{2}) + \Delta_{1}e^{iqy}exp[-(x-q\ell^{2}/2)^{2}/\ell^{2}]. \end{equation} Inserting Eq. (23) into Eq. (10) one finds \begin{equation} \Delta_{0}exp(-x_{1}^{2}/\ell^{2}) =VT\int\sum_{\omega}G^{\uparrow}_{\omega}(1,2) G_{-\omega}^{\downarrow}(1,2)\Delta_{0}exp(-x_{2}^{2}/\ell^{2}) dx_{2}dy_{2}, \end{equation} and \begin{eqnarray} \Delta_{1}e^{iqy_{1}}exp[-(x_{1}-q\ell^{2}/2)^{2}/\ell^{2}] &=&VT\int\sum_{\omega}G^{\uparrow}_{\omega}(1,2) G_{-\omega}^{\downarrow}(1,2)\nonumber\\ &\times& \Delta_{1}e^{iqy_{2}}exp[-(x_{2}-q\ell^{2}/2)^{2}/\ell^{2}] dx_{2}dy_{2}, \end{eqnarray} since the two solutions are linearly independent. Notice that we can not find the temperature at which the two different types of the condensation occur simultaneously due to the difference in the pairing matrix elements as shown above. Nevertheless, as Galitskii$^{25}$ suggested, it is tempting to write the resulting manybody state as a combination of the above ground states, that is, \begin{equation} \tilde{\phi}_{BCS}+ \tilde{\phi}_{BCS}'= \prod_{n}[u_{n}+v_{n}(\phi_{n}\uparrow, \phi_{-n}\downarrow)]|0> + \prod_{n}[u_{n}+v_{n}(\phi_{n}\uparrow, \phi_{-n+1}\downarrow)]|0>. \end{equation} This combination is just the so-called incoherent superposition of different types of off-diagonal long-range-order(ODLRO),$^{9-14}$ which does not correspond to any real physical state. Hone$^{10}$ actually demonstrated the impossibility of constructing a complete hierarchy of Green's functions in such a case. For the pair potential \begin{equation} \Delta(x,y)\sim \Delta_{2}e^{i2qy}exp[-(x-q\ell^{2})^{2}/\ell^{2}], \end{equation} one finds the $T_{c}$ equation \begin{equation} 1=VT_{c}{N_{o}^{2}\over \sqrt{2}} \sum_{\omega}\sum_{n} {e^{-2(n-1)^{2}q^{2}\ell^{2}}\over \omega^{2}+\epsilon_{o}^{2}}. \end{equation} When the electrons are confined in the x-direction as assumed here, the $T_{c}$ is different from those of the previous cases. Whereas for an infinite system or the system with the periodic boundary condition in the x-direction, the $T_{c}$ may be the same as that for the pair potential corresponding to $n=0$ in Eq. (14). We have then $T_{c}$ for $\Delta_{0}, \Delta_{2}, \Delta_{4}, \cdots$ and $T_{c}'(\not=T_{c})$ for $\Delta_{1}, \Delta_{3}, \Delta_{5}, \cdots$. It is interesting to note that the Abrikosov solution with $C_{n+2}=C_{n}$ has a lower energy than that with $C_{n+1}=C_{n}$. Thus, the self-consistency equation does not allow the Abrikosov's vortex solution or the corresponding two-particle pair potential Eq. (14). It is obvious that adding different types of off-diagonal long-range-order (ODLRO) in Gor'kov's formalism does not lead to a coherent vortex state. On the other hand, previous workers first sum over the eigenstate $\phi_{n}$ in the one-particle Green's function and then consider the self-consistency condition, which fails to take into account the two-particle correlations correctly. \section{\bf Discussion } To describe the vortex state, we need to devise a coherent manybody ground state which may be closely related to the Abrikosov's vortex solution. Feynman's vortex solution of the superfluid He-4 may be a good starting point. More details will be published elsewhere.$^{26}$ Gor'kov's formalism may also be generalized to obtain a coherent superposition of the different types of the pairing.$^{17,18}$ \vspace{1pc} \centerline{\bf ACKNOWLEDGMENTS} I am grateful to Hatice Altug for discussions about Feynman's wavefunction. \begin{references} \bibitem{1} H. F. Hess, R. B. Robinson, R. C. Dynes, J. M. Valles, Jr., and J. V. Waszczak, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 62}, 214 (1989). \bibitem{2} H. F. Hess, R. B. Robinson, and J. V. Waszczak, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 64}, 2711 (1990). \bibitem{3} I. Maggio-Aprile, Ch. Renner, A. Erb, E. Walker, and O. Fischer, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 75}, 2754(1995). \bibitem{4} A. W. Overhauser and L. L. Daemen, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 62}, 1691 (1989). \bibitem{5} J. D. Shore, M. Huang, A. T. Dorsey, and J. P. Sethna, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 62}, 3089 (1989). \bibitem{6} F. Gygi and M. Schluter, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 65}, 1820 (1990). \bibitem{7} Harald Hess's web page. \bibitem{8} D. J. Thouless, P. Ao, Q. Niu, M. R. Geller, and C. Wexler, cond-mat/9709127. \bibitem{9} L. P. Gor'kov and V. M. Galitskii, Sov. Phys. JETP. {\bf 13}, 792 (1961). \bibitem{10} D. Hone, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 8}, 370 (1962). \bibitem{11} R. Balian, L. H. Nosanow, and N. R. Werthamer, Phys. Rev. B {\bf 8}, 372 (1962). \bibitem{12} P. W. Anderson, Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. {\bf 7}, 465 (1965). \bibitem{13} P. W. Anderson, Rev. Mod. Phys. {\bf 38}, 298 (1966). \bibitem{14} P. W. Anderson, {\sl Basic Notions of Condensed Matter Physics}, (Benjamin/Cummings, Menlo Park, 1984), p. 247. \bibitem{15} Yong-Jihn Kim and A. W. Overhauser, Phys. Rev. B {\bf 49}, 15799 (1994). \bibitem{16} Mi-Ae Park, M. H. Lee, and Yong-Jihn Kim, Physica C {\bf 306}, 96 (1998). \bibitem{17} Yong-Jihn Kim, Mod. Phys. Lett. B {\bf 10}, 555 (1996). \bibitem{18} Yong-Jihn Kim, Int. J. Mod. Phys. B {\bf 11}, 1731 (1997). \bibitem{19} Yong-Jihn Kim and K. J. Chang, Mod. Phys. Lett. B {\bf 12}, 763 (1998). \bibitem{20} Mi-Ae Park and Yong-Jihn Kim, cond-mat/9909365. \bibitem{21} A. A. Abrikosov, Zh. Eksperim. i Teor. Fiz. {\bf 32}, 1442 (1957) [Sov. Phys. JETP {\bf 5}, 1174 (1957)]. \bibitem{22} W. H. Kleiner, L. M. Roth, and S. H. Autler, Phys. Rev. {\bf 133}, A1226 (1964). \bibitem{23} Since this quantity becomes zero for an ideal 2-d problem, we actually need to include the motion along the z-direction, which can be done easily. Alternatively we may include the edge state. See B. I. Halperin, Phys. Rev. B {\bf 25}, 2185 (1982). This does not affect our conclusion. \bibitem{24} L. P. Gor'kov, J. Exptl. Theor. Phys. (U.S.S.R) {\bf 36}, 1918 (1959) [Sov. Phys. JETP {\bf 36}, 1364 (1959)]. \bibitem{25} V. M. Galitskii, Physica {\bf 26}, S143 (1960). \bibitem{26} Hatice Altug and Yong-Jihn Kim, unpublished. \end{references} \end{document}