Vladimir Cvetkovic

Leiden University

Superconductivity from the 'ordered' limit

The conventional understanding of superconductivity rests heavily on the physics of quantum gasses (Bose-Einstein, BCS). In the high Tc superconductors the superfluid is very strongly correlated, being on the verge of solidifying in a stripe phase. Inspired by this problem we have used the machinery of quantum field theory to construct the limit of `optimally orderly' superconductivity. These superconductors  can be viewed as quantum-elastic entities, different from normal crystals in the sense that they have lost their rigidity against shear stresses, or either as `dual' Bose condensates of quantum-dislocations. In this limit exciting new physical properties emerge whiccan in principle be measured although they invoke unconventional experiments: quantum-liquid crystalline orders,  oscillations of magnetic screening currents, overscreening of Coulomb force, and especially new collective modes found in the dynamical electromagnetic response.