Abstract
In this day and age, when the world recently has celebrated what is most probably the detection of the predicted Higgs-boson of the Standard Model in the Large-Hadron Collider at CERN, it is only fit to mention the Higgs-boson and the Higgs-mechanism in a popular text on superconductivity. The reason is that the Higgs-mechanism plays out in a spectacular manner in the remarkable electrodynamics we find in superconductors, most notably type-II superconductors. Moreover, superconductivity is the first known physical phenomenon (albeit non-relativistic) which is a direct manifestation of what has become known as the Anderson-Higgs mechanism, and which was understood as such.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Goldstones theorem states that whenever a continuous symmetry is spontaneously broken, massless particles will appear in the spectrum of the system. Well-known examples are phonons when a liquid freezes to a crystal, and magnons when a paramagnet becomes ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic. In superfluids, Goldstone modes appear as phase-fluctuations of the superfluid order parameter when superfluidity sets in, and are acoustical phonons. In the presence of gauge fields, like in the case of superconductors, the Goldstone modes are subsumed on the gauge field (Eq. 12.2 above) and do not appear in the spectrum.
- 2.
Named for J. Bardeen, L. Cooper, and J. R. Schrieffer, who came up with a microscopic theory of superconductivity in 1957. This theory was used by L. P. Gorkov to derive the Ginzburg-Landau theory from microcopics shortly thereafter.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sudbø, A. (2013). The Anderson-Higgs Mechanism for the Meissner Effect in Superconductors. In: Superconductivity: Discoveries and Discoverers. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36059-6_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36059-6_12
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-36058-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-36059-6
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)