Re-examining the critical velocity of a clean one-dimensional superconductor

We revisit the problem of the critical velocity of a clean one-dimensional superconductor. At the level of mean-field theory, we find that the zero-temperature value of the critical velocity— the uniform velocity of the superfluid condensate at which the superconducting state becomes unstable—is a factor of √ 2 smaller than the Landau critical velocity. This is in contrast to a prior finding, which held that the critical velocity is equal to the Landau critical velocity. The smaller value of the critical velocity, which our analysis yields, is the result of a pre-emptive ClogstonChandrasekhar–like discontinuous phase transition, and is an analog of the threshold value of the uniform exchange-field of a superconductor, previously investigated by Sarma and by Maki and Tsuneto. We also consider the impact of nonzero temperature, study critical currents, and examine metastability and its limits in the temperature versus flow-velocity phase diagram. In addition, we comment on the effects of electron scattering by impurities.