Theory of electron-phonon superconductivity: Does retardation really lead to a small Coulomb pseudopotential?

Abstract

The theory of electron-phonon superconductivity depends on retardation drastically reducing effects of the strong Coulomb repulsion. The standard theory only treats the lowest order diagram, which is an uncontrolled approximation. We study retardation in the Hubbard-Holstein model in a controlled way using perturbation theory and dynamical mean-field theory. We calculate analytically second order results for the pseudopotential $\mu^*$ and demonstrate the validity up to intermediate couplings by comparison with non-perturbative results. Retardation effects are still operative, but less efficient, leading to somewhat larger values of $\mu^*$. Therefore, our theory can help to understand situations where the standard theory yields overestimates for $T_c$.