Confinement and Asymptotic Freedom with Cooper pairs

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that superinsulating states in superconducting films serve as a laboratory for studying confinement and asymptotic freedom phenomena akin to quantum chromodynamics, through the binding of Cooper pairs by electric strings.

Contribution

It establishes a direct experimental realization of confinement and asymptotic freedom using superinsulators, mapping quarks onto Cooper pairs in a condensed matter system.

Findings

Superinsulators mimic a single-color QCD with confinement.

Cooper pairs are linearly bound into neutral mesons by electric strings.

Superinsulators provide a platform for testing fundamental QCD phenomena.

Abstract

One of the most profound aspects of the standard model of particle physics, the mechanism of confinement binding quarks into hadrons, is not sufficiently understood. The only known semiclassical mechanism of confinement, mediated by chromo-electric strings in a condensate of magnetic monopoles still lacks experimental evidence. Here we show that the infinite resistance superinsulating state, which emerges on the insulating side of the superconductor-insulator transition in superconducting films offers a realization of confinement that allows for a direct experimental access. We find that superinsulators realize a single-color version of quantum chromodynamics and establish the mapping of quarks onto Cooper pairs. We reveal that the mechanism of superinsulation is the linear binding of Cooper pairs into neutral "mesons" by electric strings. Our findings offer a powerful laboratory for exploring and testing the fundamental implications of confinement, asymptotic freedom, and related quantum chromodynamics phenomena via desktop experiments on superconductors.