Electromagnetic superconductivity of vacuum induced by strong magnetic field

Abstract

The quantum vacuum may become an electromagnetic superconductor in the presence of a strong external magnetic field of the order of 1016 Tesla. The magnetic field of the required strength (and even stronger) are expected to be generated for very short times in ultraperipheral collisions of lead ions at the Large Hadron Collider. The superconducting properties of the new phase appear as a result of a magnetic-field-assisted condensation of quark-antiquark pairs with quantum numbers of electrically charged ρ ± mesons. We discuss similarities and differences between the suggested superconducting state of the quantum vacuum, a conventional superconductivity and the Schwinger pair creation. We argue qualitatively and quantitatively why the superconducting state should be a natural ground state of the vacuum at the sufficiently strong magnetic field. We demonstrate the existence of the superconducting phase using both the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model and an effective bosonic model based vector meson dominance (the ρ-meson electrodynamics). We discuss various properties of the new phase such as absence of Meissner effect, anisotropy of superconductivity, spatial inhomogeneity of ground state, emergence of a neutral superfluid component in the ground state and presence of new topological vortices in the quark-antiquark condensates. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.