Dual gauge theory of the Ginzburg-Landau model of superconductivity

Full text. We analyze the effect of vortex excitations in a (2+1)d Ginzburg-Landau theory for the metal/superconductor transition. This theory can be considered as the non-relativistic limit of the usual abelian Higgs model. To do this, we use a recently developed technique to compute the effective potential for vortex condensation in a gauge theory. By expressing the original action in terms of dual transformed fields, we can explicitly consider the contribution of the vortex excitations. The effective potential of an appropriately defined local vacuum expectation value of the vortex field in the dual action is then evaluated both, at zero and finite temperatures, and its properties discussed in the context of the finite temperature phase transition. This formalism allows us to improve usual treatments of fluctuation induced phase transitions where a homogeneous mean field is considered. We intend to apply our results to study transport properties of thin film superconductors. The vortex dynamics in these materials play a relevant role, especially for the structure of the Josephson current between superconducting layers. (author)