Upper critical field for superconductors with edges and corners (Q1614900)

The subject is superconduction, a phenomenon on great interest since its discovery in the late 1940s. Almost all theoretical papers in this field start with the study of a version of the Ginsburg-Landau functional \({\mathcal E}\), which is a function of a complex-valued parameter \(\psi\), known as the order parameter, and a real field \(A\) called the magnetic potential. Then \((\psi, A)\) is a global minimizer of Gibbs free energy. The author considers a cylinder with smooth cross-section and a cuboid, to prove his assertions regarding \(H_{C^3}\), which is the value of the upper critical field. The main object of this study is finding the effect of non-smoothness of the edges of their samples on \(H_{C^3}\). The author shows that these values are higher than those in samples with smooth surfaces. He studies effects of the magnetic field being parallel or perpendicular to the axis of the cylinder. Using techniques of S. Agmon he shows that the order parameter decays exponentially away from the edges, in the \(L_2\) sense. He also finds that superconductivity nucleates first at the top and bottom edges in the cylinder, and at the edges in a cuboid.