Physical limitations of the Hohenberg-Mermin-Wagner theorem

TL;DR

This paper critically examines the Hohenberg-Mermin-Wagner theorem's limitations, showing that finite size, disorder, and alternative interpretations allow for high-temperature 2D superconductivity in practical samples, challenging previous assumptions.

Contribution

It introduces a modified version of the HMW theorem for superconductivity, demonstrating that IR fluctuations do not prevent room-temperature 2D superconductivity in realistic conditions.

Findings

Finite-size effects can restore magnetic order at finite temperatures.

The alternative HMW theorem version allows 2D SC at 2-3 times room temperature.

IR fluctuations do not prevent high-temperature 2D superconductivity in practical samples.

Abstract

The Hohenberg-Mermin-Wagner (HMW) theorem states that infrared (IR) fluctuations prevent long-range order which breaks continuous symmetries in two dimensions (2D), at finite temperatures. We note that the theorem becomes physically effective for superconductivity (SC) only for astronomical sample sizes, so it does not prevent 2D SC in practice. We systematically explore the sensitivity of the magnetic and SC versions of the theorem to finite-size and disorder effects. For magnetism, finite-size effects, disorder, and perpendicular coupling can all restore the order parameter at a non-negligible value of $T_c$ equally well, making the physical reason for finite $T_c$ sample-dependent. For SC, an alternative version of the HMW theorem is presented, in which the temperature cutoff is set by Cooper pairing, in place of the Fermi energy in the standard version. It still allows 2D SC at $2$--$3$ times the room temperature when the interaction scale is large and Cooper pairs are small, the case with high-$T_c$ SC in the cuprates. Thus IR fluctuations do not prevent 2D SC at room temperatures in samples of any reasonable size, by any known version of the HMW argument. A possible approach to derive mechanism-dependent upper bounds for SC $T_c$ is pointed out.