Hole superconductivity: Review and some new results

Abstract

We review recent work on a mechanism proposed to explain high T c superconductivity in oxides as well as superconductivity of conventional materials. It is based on pairing of hole carriers through their direct Coulomb interaction, and gives rise to superconductivity because of the momentum dependence of the repulsive interaction in the solid state environment. In the regime of parameters appropriate for high T c oxides this mechanism leads to characteristic signatures that should be experimentally verifiable. In the regime of “conventional superconductors” most of these signatures become unobservable, but the characteristic dependence of T c on band filling survives. New features discussed here include the demonstration that superconductivity can result from repulsive interactions even if the gap function does not change sign and the inclusion of a self-energy correction to the hole propagator that reduces the range of band filling where T c is not zero.