Non-ergodic dynamics and topological-sector fluctuations in layered high-temperature superconductors

在足够低的温度下，某些材料的组成电子作为一个零电阻体流动。这就是超导性。这种行为首先是在固体汞中测量的，固体汞的超导温度约为-270摄氏度，因此被归类为低温超导体。然而，某些基于铜氧化物的材料可以在更高的温度下超导：最高可达-130摄氏度。因此，这些材料属于被称为高温超导体的单独一类。这组材料具有极其复杂的多层晶体结构，很难建模，这意味着高温超导理论仍然是凝聚态物理中尚未解决的主要问题之一。在任何给定的温度下，超导体要么处于正常状态，要么处于超导状态。最近对氧化铜基材料的实验测量到，在这两种状态之间的转变温度下，它们的电阻出现了巨大的波动。巨大的涨落是材料复杂结构的结果：因此，这种现象的理论模型将揭示这些结构的细节，并推动研究界走向高温超导的完整理论。这将导致超导在众多工程应用方面的进展，包括基于超导的量子计算、磁共振成像、大型强子对撞机等同步加速器中的粒子约束、聚变反应堆中的等离子体约束，以及用于医学和更远领域高精度磁测量的超导量子干涉设备。

At low enough temperatures, the constituent electrons of certain materials flow as a single body with zero electrical resistance. This is called superconductivity. The behaviour was first measured in solid mercury, which superconducts at around -270C and is therefore classed as a low-temperature superconductor. Certain copper-oxide-based materials, however, can superconduct at much higher temperatures: up to -130C. These materials therefore belong to the separate group known as high-temperature superconductors. This group of materials have extremely complex multi-layered crystal structures that are difficult to model, meaning that a theory of high-temperature superconductivity remains one of the major unsolved problems in condensed-matter physics.At any given temperature, a superconductor will either be in its normal or superconducting state. Recent experiments on copper-oxide-based materials measured large fluctuations in their electrical resistances at the transition temperature between these two states. The large fluctuations are a result of the complex structures of the materials: a theoretical model for this phenomenon will therefore uncover details of these structures and drive the research community towards a complete theory of high-temperature superconductivity. This will lead to advances in the myriad engineering applications of superconductivity, which include superconductor-based quantum computing, magnetic resonance imaging, particle confinement in synchrotrons such as the Large Hadron Collider, plasma confinement in fusion reactors, and superconducting quantum interference devices used for high-precision magnetic measurements in medicine and further afield.