BCS as Foundation and Inspiration: The Transmutation of Symmetry
Name
Wilczek_BCS as.pdf
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277.15 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
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4148d4670bb87b2add42b90b84de98b4
Author(s)
Wilczek, Frank
Date Issued
December 2010
Journal
Modern Physics Letters A
Publisher
World Scientific
Citation
Wilczek, Frank. “BCS as Foundation and Inspiration: The Transmutation of Symmetry.” Modern Physics Letters A 25.38 (2010): 3169–3189.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
The BCS theory injected two powerful ideas into the collective consciousness of theoretical physics: pairing and spontaneous symmetry breaking. In the 50 years since the seminal work of Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer, those ideas have found important use in areas quite remote from the stem application to metallic superconductivity. This is a brief and eclectic sketch of some highlights, emphasizing relatively recent developments in QCD and in the theory of quantum statistics, and including a few thoughts about future directions. A common theme is the importance of symmetry transmutation, as opposed to the simple breaking of electromagnetic U(1) symmetry in classic metallic superconductors.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Theoretical Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1142/s0217732310034626
