{"title":"Ab initio methods for superconductivity","authors":"Camilla Pellegrini, Antonio Sanna","doi":"10.1038/s42254-024-00738-9","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Modern ab initio theories of superconductivity allow characterizing and predicting phonon-mediated superconductors. In this Technical Review, we analyse Eliashberg theory, density functional theory for superconductors as well as McMillan and Allen–Dynes equations, providing a summary of the underlying approximations and capabilities. We highlight in simple terms and with examples the many sources of error, which may lead to inaccurate predictions, including limitations on the applicability of the methods, subtle convergence aspects and improper practices often adopted to simplify the treatment of Coulomb interactions. Additionally, we compare the accuracy of the various methods by computing the critical temperature (Tc) for a broad range of superconductors and benchmarking against experimental results. We find that even the simple McMillan and Allen–Dynes formulas give Tc distributions centred on the experimental values. The Eliashberg theory and density functional theory for superconductors yield more peaked distributions, strongly reducing the possibility of incorrect predictions. Ab initio theories of superconductivity allow characterizing and predicting phonon-mediated superconductors. This Technical Review provides an analysis of the different theories, highlighting the main sources of error, either due to inherent approximations or arising from improper practices, and provides a comparison against experimental results.","PeriodicalId":19024,"journal":{"name":"Nature Reviews Physics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":44.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Nature Reviews Physics","FirstCategoryId":"101","ListUrlMain":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s42254-024-00738-9","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PHYSICS, APPLIED","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Modern ab initio theories of superconductivity allow characterizing and predicting phonon-mediated superconductors. In this Technical Review, we analyse Eliashberg theory, density functional theory for superconductors as well as McMillan and Allen–Dynes equations, providing a summary of the underlying approximations and capabilities. We highlight in simple terms and with examples the many sources of error, which may lead to inaccurate predictions, including limitations on the applicability of the methods, subtle convergence aspects and improper practices often adopted to simplify the treatment of Coulomb interactions. Additionally, we compare the accuracy of the various methods by computing the critical temperature (Tc) for a broad range of superconductors and benchmarking against experimental results. We find that even the simple McMillan and Allen–Dynes formulas give Tc distributions centred on the experimental values. The Eliashberg theory and density functional theory for superconductors yield more peaked distributions, strongly reducing the possibility of incorrect predictions. Ab initio theories of superconductivity allow characterizing and predicting phonon-mediated superconductors. This Technical Review provides an analysis of the different theories, highlighting the main sources of error, either due to inherent approximations or arising from improper practices, and provides a comparison against experimental results.
期刊介绍:
Nature Reviews Physics is an online-only reviews journal, part of the Nature Reviews portfolio of journals. It publishes high-quality technical reference, review, and commentary articles in all areas of fundamental and applied physics. The journal offers a range of content types, including Reviews, Perspectives, Roadmaps, Technical Reviews, Expert Recommendations, Comments, Editorials, Research Highlights, Features, and News & Views, which cover significant advances in the field and topical issues. Nature Reviews Physics is published monthly from January 2019 and does not have external, academic editors. Instead, all editorial decisions are made by a dedicated team of full-time professional editors.