Spontaneous breaking of rotational symmetry in superconductors

Abstract

We show that homogeneous superconductors with broken spin/isospin symmetry lower their energy via a transition to a novel superconducting state where the Fermi-surfaces are deformed to a quasi-ellipsoidal form at zero total momentum of Cooper pairs. In this state, the gain in the condensation energy of the pairs dominates over the loss in the kinetic energy caused by the lowest order (quadrupole) deformation of Fermi-surfaces from the spherically symmetric form. There are two energy minima in general, corresponding to the deformations of the Fermi-spheres into either prolate or oblate forms. The phase transition from spherically symmetric state to the superconducting state with broken rotational symmetry is of the first order.