Landau Levels and Quasiparticle Spectrum of Extreme Type-II Superconductors

TL;DR

This paper analytically constructs the quasiparticle spectrum of extreme type-II superconductors at high magnetic fields, revealing a gapless spectrum with potential observable effects in thermodynamics and transport.

Contribution

It introduces a high-field expansion method to analytically determine the quasiparticle spectrum in extreme type-II superconductors, highlighting a quantum level-crossing transition.

Findings

Spectrum is gapless at high magnetic fields.

A quantum level-crossing transition separates low and high-field regimes.

Low energy excitations influence thermodynamic and transport properties.

Abstract

At high magnetic fields and low temperatures, numerous extreme type-II superconductors exhibit Landau quantization of electronic motion. We present an analytic construction of the quasiparticle spectrum in this regime, based on the high-field expansion. The spectrum is gapless and is separated from the familiar low-field regime by a quantum level-crossing transition. Such low energy excitations should lead to observable effects in thermodynamics and transport.