Neglected U(1) phase in the Schrödinger representation of quantum mechanics and particle number conserving formalisms for superconductivity

Abstract

Abstract Superconductivity is reformulated as a phenomenon in which a stable velocity field is created by a U(1) phase neglected by Dirac in the Schrödinger representation of quantum mechanics. The neglected phase gives rise to a U(1) gauge field expressed as the Berry connection from many-body wave functions. The inclusion of this gauge field transforms the standard particle-number non-conserving formalism of superconductivity to a particle-number conserving one with many results of the former unaltered. In other words, the new formalism indicates that the current standard one is an approximation that effectively takes into account this neglected U(1) gauge field by employing the particle-number non-conserving formalism. Since the standard and new formalisms are physically different, conflicting results are predicted in some cases. We reexamine the Josephson relation and show that a capacitance contribution of the Josephson junction to the U(1) phase is missing in the standard formalism, and inclusion of it indicates that the standard theory actually does not agree with the experiment while the new one does. It is also shown that the dissipative quantum phase transition in Josephson junctions predicted in the standard theory does not exist in the new one in accordance with a recent experiment (Murani et al 2020 Phys. Rev. X 10 021003).