INHOMOGENEOUS STATES OF NONEQUILIBRIUM SUPERCONDUCTORS : QUASIPARTICLE BAGS AND ANTIPHASE DOMAIN WALLS

Nonequilibrium properties of short-coherence-length s-wave superconductors are analyzed in the presence of extrinsic and intrinsic inhomogeneities. In general, the lowest-energy configurations of quasiparticle excitations are topological textures into which quasiparticles segregate and that are described as antiphase domain walls between superconducting regions whose order parameter phases differ by {pi}. Antiphase domain walls can be probed by various experimental techniques, for example, by optical absorption and NMR. At zero temperature, quasiparticles seldom appear as self-trapped bag states. However, for low concentrations of quasiparticles, they may be stabilized in superconductors by extrinsic defects. {copyright} {ital 1998} {ital The American Physical Society}