Ephemeral superconductivity atop the false vacuum

Ephemeral superconductivity atop the false vacuum

Blog Article

Abstract A many-body system in the vicinity of a first-order phase transition may get trapped in a local minimum of the free energy landscape.These so-called false-vacuum states may survive for exceedingly long times if the barrier for their decay is high enough.The rich phase diagram obtained in graphene multilayer devices presents a unique opportunity to explore transient superconductivity on top of a correlated false vacuum.

Specifically, we consider superconductors which are terminated by an apparent first-order phase transition to a correlated phase with different symmetry.We propose that Top quenching across this transition leads to a non-equilibrium ephemeral superconductor, readily detectable using straightforward NIACIN NO-FLUSH transport measurements.Moreover, the transient superconductor also generically enhances the false vacuum lifetime, potentially by orders of magnitude.

In several scenarios, the complimentary effect takes place as well: superconductivity is temporarily emboldened in the false vacuum, albeit ultimately decaying.We demonstrate the applicability of these claims for different instances of superconductivity terminated by a first order transition in rhombohedral graphene.The obtained decay timescales position this class of materials as a promising playground to unambiguously realize and measure non-equilibrium superconductivity.