Effects of disorder on lattice Ginzburg-Landau model of d-wave superconductors and superfluids

TL;DR

This study investigates how quenched disorder affects the phase transition and superconducting properties of a 2D d-wave superconductor model using Monte Carlo simulations, revealing disorder-induced suppression of superconductivity.

Contribution

It introduces a 3D lattice model for d-wave superconductors with quenched disorder and analyzes the disorder's impact on phase transition behavior and universality class.

Findings

Second-order phase transition exists in the nonrandom case.

Disorder suppresses the transition at a critical concentration (~15%).

Implications for cold atomic systems are discussed.

Abstract

We study the effects of quenched disorder on the two-dimensional d-wave superconductors (SC's) at zero temperature by Monte-Carlo simulations. The model is defined on the three-dimesional (3D) lattice and the SC pair field is put on each spatial link as motivated in the resonating-valence-bond theory of the high-$T_{\rm c}$ SC's. For the nonrandom case, the model exhibits a second-order phase transition to a SC state as density of charge carriers is increased. It belongs to the universality class {\it different from} that of the 3D XY model. Quenched disorders (impurities) are introduced both in the hopping amplitude and the plaquette term of pair fields. Then the second-order transition disappears at a critical concentration of quenched disorder, $p_c\simeq 15%$. Implication of the results to cold atomic systems in optical lattices is also discussed.