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Particle-Hole Fluctuations in Superconductors
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- Author / Creator
- Protter, Mason
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In this thesis we investigate how corrections originating from particle-hole interactions may be introduced into the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory of superconductivity using functional integral methods. The attractive Fermionic contact interaction is simultaneously decoupled in the Cooper and exchange channels, with the exchange-channel decoupling field treated as a small fluctuation about its zero mean-field value. Upon integrating out the exchange-channel fluctuation field, the system is described by a new effective action for the Cooper-channel decoupling field, which models the superconducting condensate. The saddle-point condition of this effective action generates the standard mean-field BCS equations with correction terms containing particle-hole polarization bubbles. The corrections obtained in this thesis are similar in spirit, albeit different in form, to those originally found in 1961 by Gor’kov and Melik-Barkhudarov (GMB). An advantage of the technique employed here, as opposed to the GMB approach, is the methodical manner in which fluctuations can be incorporated into superconductors.
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- Graduation date
- Fall 2019
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Master of Science
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- License
- Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.