Can topological transitions be exploited to engineer intrinsically quench-resistant wires?

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate whether by synthesizing superconductors that are tuned to a topological, node-reconstruction transition point, we could create superconducting wires that are intrinsically resilient to quenches. Recent work shows that the exponent characterizing the temperature dependence of the specific heat of a nodal superconductor is lowered over a region of the phase diagram near topological transitions where nodal lines form or reconnect. Our idea is that the resulting enhancement of the low-temperature specific heat could have a potential application in the prevention of superconductor quenches. We perform numerical simulations of a simplified superconductor quench model. Results show that decreasing the specific heat exponent can prevent a quench from occurring and improve quench resilience, though in our simple model the effects are small. Further work will be necessary to establish the practical feasibility of this approach.