Confinement of monopole field lines in a superconductor at T ≠ 0 Original Research Article

We apply the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations to the confinement of a monopole–antimonopole pair in a superconductor. This is related to the problem of a quark–antiquark pair bound by a confining string, consisting of a colour-electric flux tube, dual to the magnetic vortex of type-II superconductors. We study the confinement of the field lines due to the superconducting state and calculate the effective potential between the two monopoles. The monopoles can be simulated in a real experiment inserting two long and thin magnetic rods. At short distances the potential is Coulombic and at large distances the potential is linear, as previously determined solving the Ginzburg–Landau equations. The magnetic field lines and the string tension are also studied as a function of the temperature T. Because we take into account the explicit fermionic degrees of freedom, this work may open new perspectives to the breaking of chiral symmetry or to colour superconductivity.