Cooper Molecules: Second Pairing of Cooper Pairs in Gapless Superconductor CeCoIn5 *

Abstract

We establish a quantum field theory of phase transitions in gapless superconductor CeCoIn 5. It is found that uniform Cooper pair gases with pure gradient interactions with negative coefficient can undergo a Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) condensation below a critical temperature. In the BCS condensation state, bare Cooper pairs with opposite wave vectors are bound into Cooper molecules, and uncoupled bare Cooper pairs are transformed into a new kind of quasiparticle, i.e., the dressed particles. The Cooper molecule system is a condensate or a superfluid, and the dressed particle system is a normal fluid. The critical temperature is derived analytically. The critical temperature of the superconductor CeCoIn 5 is obtained to be T c = 2.289 K, which approaches the experimental data. The transition from the BCS condensation state to the normal state is a first-order phase transition.