Speaker
Description
In a series of papers Hirsch argues that the established theory of superconductivity describes neither the dynamics nor the thermodynamics of the Meissner effect in a type-I superconductor, if the magnetic field is switched on before the metal is cooled into the superconducting state. He finds that similar problems appear also when dealing with the process of magnetic field generation in rotating superconductors. His arguments have been summarized in a recent book [1]. Here we examine his criticism in quite detail. To this end, we solve the Maxwell equations supplemented by the simplest established constitutive equation for a superconductor, namely the London equation. We demonstrate that, even at this level of description, the established theory does resolve the problems identified by Hirsch. Surprisingly, the dynamics of the studied processes turns out to be quite rich and interesting.
Acknowledgements
This work was done in collaboration with Peter Markoš and supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under Contract No. APVV-23-0515.
References
[1] J. Hirsch, Superconductivity begins with H, World Scientific, New Jersey, 2020.
