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Ground State Wave Function Overlap in Superconductors and Superfluids

Abstract

In order to elucidate the quantum ground state structure of non-relativistic condensates, we explicitly construct the ground state wave function for multiple species of bosons, describing either superconductivity or superfluidity. Since each field Ψ_j carries a phase θ_j and the Lagrangian is invariant under rotations θ_j → θ_j + α_j for independent α_j, one can investigate the corresponding wave function overlap between a pair of ground states G|G' differing by these phases. We operate in the infinite volume limit and use a particular prescription to define these states by utilizing the position space kernel and regulating the UV modes. We show that this overlap vanishes for most pairs of rotations, including θ_j → θ_j + m_j ε, where m_j is the mass of each species, while it is unchanged under the transformation θ_j → θ_j + q_j ε, where q_j is the charge of each species. We explain that this is consistent with the distinction between a superfluid, in which there is a non-trivial conserved number, and the superconductor, in which the electric field and conserved charge is screened, while it is compatible with a non-zero order parameter in both cases. Moreover, we find that this bulk ground state wave function overlap directly reflects the Goldstone boson structure of the effective theory and provides a useful diagnostic of its physical phase.

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