Dynamic processes in superconductors and the laws of thermodynamics

Abstract

The transition from the superconducting to the normal state in a magnetic field was considered as a irreversible thermodynamic process before 1933 because of Joule heating. But all physicists became to consider this transition as reversible after 1933 because of the obvious contradiction of the Meissner effect with the second law of thermodynamics if this transition is considered as a irreversible process. This radical change of the opinion contradicted logic since the dissipation of the kinetic energy of the surface screening current into Joule heat in the normal state cannot depend on how this current appeared in the superconducting state. The inconsistency of the conventional theory of superconductivity, created in the framework of the equilibrium thermodynamics, with Joule heating, on which Jorge Hirsch draws reader's attention, is a consequence of this history. In order to avoid contradiction with the second law of thermodynamics, physicists postulated in the thirties of the last century that the surface screening current is damped without the generation of Joule heat. This postulate contradicts not only logic and the conventional theory of superconductivity but also experimental results.

10 pages, 2 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Persistent currents in normal metal rings
• Fluctuation Superconductivity in Mesoscopic Aluminum Rings
• Observation of the Little-Parks Oscillations in a System of Asymmetric Superconducting Rings
• Experimental investigations of the problem of the quantum jump with the help of superconductor nanostructures
• A development of superconducting differential double contour interferometer

Cited by in corpus (5)

• The law of entropy increase and the Meissner effect
• Belief in thermodynamics has provoked false thermodynamics of superconductors
• A problem with the conservation law observed in macroscopic quantum phenomena is a consequence of violation of the correspondence principle
• A case of thermodynamic failure in the Ginzburg--Landau approach to fluctuation superconductivity
• The Meissner effect does not require radial charge flow