On Effect of Equilibrium Fluctuations on Superfluid Density in Layered Superconductors

Abstract

We calculate suppression of inter- and intralayer superconducting currents due to equilibrium phase fluctuations and find that, in contrast to a recent prediction, the effect of thermal fluctuations cannot account for linear temperature dependence of the superfluid density in high-Tc superconductors at low temperatures. Quantum fluctuations are found to dominate over thermal fluctuations at low temperatures due to hardening of their spectrum caused by the Josephson plasma resonance. Near Tc sizeable thermal fluctuations are found to suppress the critical current in the stack direction stronger, than in the direction along the layers. Fluctuations of quasiparticle branch imbalance make the spectral density of voltage fluctuations at small frequencies non zero, in contrast to what may be expected from a naive interpretation of Nyquist formula.