Comment on "Quantum Phase Slips and Transport in Ultrathin Superconducting Wires"

TL;DR

This paper critiques a recent microscopic model of quantum phase slips in superconducting wires, arguing that it is phenomenological, flawed, and inconsistent with experimental data, reaffirming the validity of the original Ginzburg-Landau approach.

Contribution

The author defends the phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau model against a proposed microscopic alternative, highlighting fundamental flaws and inaccuracies in the critique.

Findings

The electromagnetic barrier results are consistent with the original paper.

The critique's renormalization scheme is fundamentally flawed.

Their comparison with experimental data is incorrect.

Abstract

In a recent Letter (Phys. Rev. Lett.78, 1552 (1997) ), Zaikin, Golubev, van Otterlo, and Zimanyi criticized the phenomenological time-dependent Ginzburg-Laudau model which I used to study the quantum phase-slippage rate for superconducting wires. They claimed that they developed a "microscopic" model, made qualitative improvement on my overestimate of the tunnelling barrier due to electromagnetic field. In this comment, I want to point out that, i), ZGVZ's result on EM barrier is expected in my paper; ii), their work is also phenomenological; iii), their renormalization scheme is fundamentally flawed; iv), they underestimated the barrier for ultrathin wires; v), their comparison with experiments is incorrect.