On electric fields in low temperature superconductors

Govaerts, Jan [UCL] Stenuit, Geoffrey Bertrand, Damien

(eng) The manifestly Lorentz covariant Landau-Ginzburg equations coupled to Maxwell's equations are considered as a possible framework for the effective description of the interactions between low temperature superconductors and magnetic as well as electric fields. A specific experimental set-up, involving a nanoscopic superconductor and only static applied fields whose geometry is crucial however, is described, which should allow to confirm or invalidate the covariant model through the determination of the temperature dependency of the critical magnetic-electric field phase diagram and the identification of some distinctive features it should display. Comment: 14 pages (Latex) + 2 postscript figures