Phases of Holographic Superconductors in an External Magnetic Field

Abstract

We study a 2+1 dimensional model of superconductors using a 3+1 dimensional gravitational dual theory of a black hole coupled to a scalar field, with negative cosmological constant. In the presence of finite temperature T and a background magnetic field B, we use numerical and analytic techniques to solve the full Maxwell-scalar equations of motion in the background geometry, finding non-trivial localized solutions that correspond to condensate droplets, and to vortices. The properties of these solutions enable us to deduce several key features of the (B,T) phase diagram.