Global stability of the normal state of superconductors in the presence of a strong electric current

Abstract

We consider the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau model of superconductivity in the presence of an electric current flowing through a two-dimensional wire. We show that when the current is sufficiently strong the solution converges in the long-time limit to the normal state. We provide two types of upper bounds for the critical current where such global stability is achieved: by using the principal eigenvalue of the magnetic Laplacian associated with the normal magnetic field, and through the norm of the resolvent of the linearized steady-state operator. In the latter case we estimate the resolvent norm in large domains by the norms of approximate operators defined on the plane and the half-plane. We also obtain a lower bound, in large domains, for the above critical current by obtaining the current for which the normal state looses its local stability.