Non-equilibrium, time-dependent effective theory of a weakly coupled superconductor at finite temperature

Abstract

We perform a well defined derivative expansion to obtain the time dependent effective theory for a BCS superconductor at finite temperature, using an arbitrary curve in the complex time plane. Our expansion is unique, being free of any problems related to the order in which analytical continuation and the derivative expansion are made, or equivalently to the order in which the zero momentum and zero energy limits are taken. In other words Landau damping terms are present but do not lead to the pathologies found in standard approaches. We discuss the reason for this, suggesting that these standard approaches may be internally inconsistent. The methods presented here are an attempt to overcome those inconsistencies, and finally, our results are compared to others in the literature.