Dynamic processes in superconductors and the laws of thermodynamics

TL;DR

The paper critiques the traditional thermodynamic understanding of superconducting transitions, highlighting inconsistencies with Joule heating and the Meissner effect, and questions the conventional damping assumptions of surface currents.

Contribution

It challenges the conventional theory of superconductivity by analyzing the thermodynamic process and the role of Joule heating, proposing that current damping involves Joule heat contrary to traditional assumptions.

Findings

Conventional theory's damping of surface currents contradicts experimental results.

The transition from superconducting to normal state involves Joule heating, opposing traditional views.

The history of thermodynamic interpretation influences current understanding of superconductivity.

Abstract

The transition from the superconducting to the normal state in a magnetic field was considered as a irreversible thermodynamic process before 1933 because of Joule heating. But all physicists became to consider this transition as reversible after 1933 because of the obvious contradiction of the Meissner effect with the second law of thermodynamics if this transition is considered as a irreversible process. This radical change of the opinion contradicted logic since the dissipation of the kinetic energy of the surface screening current into Joule heat in the normal state cannot depend on how this current appeared in the superconducting state. The inconsistency of the conventional theory of superconductivity, created in the framework of the equilibrium thermodynamics, with Joule heating, on which Jorge Hirsch draws reader's attention, is a consequence of this history. In order to avoid contradiction with the second law of thermodynamics, physicists postulated in the thirties of the last century that the surface screening current is damped without the generation of Joule heat. This postulate contradicts not only logic and the conventional theory of superconductivity but also experimental results.