With the discovery of type-II superconductivity by Abrikosov, the prediction of vortex lattices, and their experimental observation, quantized vortices have become a central object of study in superconductivity, superfluidity, and Bose--Einstein condensation. This book presents the mathematics of superconducting vortices in the framework of the acclaimed two-dimensional Ginzburg-Landau model, with or without magnetic field, and in the limit of a large Ginzburg-Landau parameter, kappa.

This text presents complete and mathematically rigorous versions of both results either already known by physicists or applied mathematicians, or entirely new. It begins by introducing mathematical tools such as the vortex balls construction and Jacobian estimates. Among the applications presented are: the determination of the vortex densities and vortex locations for energy minimizers in a wide range of regimes of applied fields, the precise expansion of the so-called first critical field in abounded domain, the existence of branches of solutions with given numbers of vortices, and the derivation of a criticality condition for vortex densities of non-minimizing solutions. Thus, this book retraces in an almost entirely self-contained way many results that are scattered in series of articles, while containing a number of previously unpublished results as well.

The book also provides a list of open problems and a guide to the increasingly diverse mathematical literature on Ginzburg--Landau related topics. It will benefit both pure and applied mathematicians, physicists, and graduate students having either an introductory or an advanced knowledge of the subject.

Klappentext

This book presents the mathematical study of vortices of the two-dimensional Ginzburg-Landau model, an important phenomenological model used to describe superconductivity. The vortices, identified as quantized amounts of vorticity of the superconducting current localized near points, are the objects of many observational and experimental studies, both past and present. The Ginzburg-Landau functionals considered include both the model cases with and without a magnetic field. The book acts a guide to the various branches of Ginzburg-Landau studies, provides context for the study of vortices, and presents a list of open problems in the field.

Inhalt

Introduction (Mathematical and physical presentation of the problem).- The vortex-balls construction.- Optimal energy estimates.- The first critical field.- Convergence to the obstacle problem.- Asymptotics of critical points.- Bibliography.- Index.