Superconducting Hydrodynamics and the Higgs Analogy

In superconductors, both the persistent electric current and the magnetic field are shown here to be quantities that relax quickly if off equilibrium, with a characteristic time of order 10^ 15 s. Therefore, they do not belong to the set of independent variables needed to construct the superconducting hydrodynamic theory. This fact renders the theory surprisingly simple and structurally indistinguishable from that accounting for a nonpolarizable and nonmagnetizable solid. Appropriate analogies may be drawn from this behavior to the Higgs mechanism.