Ab-Initio Theory of Superconductivity in a Magnetic Field II. : Numerical solution

TL;DR

This paper numerically investigates Spin Density Functional theory for superconductors, compares it with other models, and develops an extension to improve the prediction of superconducting spectra.

Contribution

It introduces a scheme based on the Dyson equation to compute many-body excitations in superconductors, extending the G0W0 method to superconductivity.

Findings

SpinSCDFT spectrum does not match true quasiparticle structure.

Derived a superconducting G0W0 method that improves spectral predictions.

Comparison shows differences between SpinSCDFT, Sarma, BCS, and Eliashberg approaches.

Abstract

We numerically investigate the Spin Density Functional theory for superconductors (SpinSCDFT) and the approximated exchange-correlation functional, derived and presented in the preceding paper I. As a test system we employ a free electron gas featuring an exchange-splitting, a phononic pairing field and a Coulomb repulsion. SpinSCDFT results are compared with Sarma, the Bardeen Cooper and Schrieffer theory and with an Eliashberg type of approach. We find that the spectrum of the superconducting Kohn-Sham SpinSCDFT system is not in agreement with the true quasi particle structure. Therefore, starting from the Dyson equation, we derive a scheme that allows to compute the many body excitations of the superconductor and represents the extension to superconductivity of the G0W0 method in band structure theory. This superconducting G0 W0 method vastly improves the predicted spectra.