Tuesday, October 30, 2018

superconductivity - How does a massive photon arise in the Condensed Matter Analogue of the Higgs Mechanism?



I've tried the wikipedia pages, papers (too complex) and other forum answers on this seemingly popular topic, to no avail. Without going into too much mathematics (sorry), could someone please explain the condensed matter analogue of the Higgs Mechanism?


E.g. I've heard that the U(1) symmetry is broken in a superconductor, and that you can think of this as resulting in the photon gaining a nonzero mass.


How is U(1) symmetry broken (why does the cooper pair BEC break U(1) symmetry), and how does this directly imply a photon mass? Thank you




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