Confinement and asymptotic freedom with Cooper pairs

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 the desktop experiments on superconductors.

The Superconductor-Superinsulator Transition: S-duality and the QCD on the Desktop

“…Finally, the name and phenomenon of superinsulation was rediscovered and experimentally detected by one of the authors (vmv) and his collaborators in [11,12] based on the earlier ex-perimental observations [13,14]. Superinsulators where identified in [11] as a low-temperature charge Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) [16,17] phase emerging at the temperature of the charge BKT transition and was derived from the wave function -phase-amplitude duality of the uncertainty principle.Motivated by 't Hooft's beautiful idea [8] and building on the framework proposed in [9], a comprehensive theory of the SIT and superinsulators was developed in [18]. It was shown that in duality to the Meissner effect in superconductors, which constricts the magnetic field lines penetrating a type II superconductor into Abrikosov vortices, in superinsulators, electric flux tubes that linearly bind Cooper pairs into neutral "mesons" form.…”

“…It was shown that in duality to the Meissner effect in superconductors, which constricts the magnetic field lines penetrating a type II superconductor into Abrikosov vortices, in superinsulators, electric flux tubes that linearly bind Cooper pairs into neutral "mesons" form. These electric strings confine fluctuating ±Cooper pair charges completely, thereby impeding electric conductance: Cooper pairs are confined exactly as quarks in hadrons [18], the finite-temperature deconfinement transition for linear potentials coinciding with the 2D BKT transition [19,20]. This established superinsulators as a novel, distinct state of matter.The interpretation of the infinite-resistance state in terms of the superinsulating state dual to superconductivity was fiercely criticized in [21] by questioning the correctness of the microscopic modeling of the superconducting films as a Josephson junction array (JJA) and attacking the treatment of this array by [11].…”

“…Motivated by 't Hooft's beautiful idea [8] and building on the framework proposed in [9], a comprehensive theory of the SIT and superinsulators was developed in [18]. It was shown that in duality to the Meissner effect in superconductors, which constricts the magnetic field lines penetrating a type II superconductor into Abrikosov vortices, in superinsulators, electric flux tubes that linearly bind Cooper pairs into neutral "mesons" form.…”

“…This is reflected by the presence of instantons M = ∂ 0 M 0 + ∂ i M i at the end of the vortex world lines M µ [23]. These instantons force the electric flux into strings, dual images of Abrikosov fluxes, that cause linear confinement of charges [23], leading to an infinite resistance state, the superinsulator [9][10][11][12]18].…”

“…The same approach applies also to describe the finitetemperature behaviour of the phases near the SIT [18]. Specifically, linearly confined charges in the superinsulator are liberated at the deconfinement phase transition, where the string tension vanishes.…”