Does the Meissner effect violate the second law of thermodynamics?
J. E. Hirsch
Abstract
In Entropy 24, 83 (2022) (Nikulov 2022), titled “The Law of Entropy Increase and the Meissner Effect”, its author Alexey Nikulov argues that the Meissner effect exhibited by type I superconductors violates the second law of thermodynamics . Contrary to this claim, I show that the Meissner effect is consistent with the second law of thermodynamics provided that a mechanism exists for the supercurrent to start and stop without generation of Joule heat. The theory of hole superconductivity provides such a mechanism, the conventional theory of superconductivity does not. It requires the existence of hole carriers in the normal state of the system.
Topics & Concepts
ThermodynamicsSecond law of thermodynamicsLaws of thermodynamicsPhysicsLawTheoretical physicsNon-equilibrium thermodynamicsPolitical scienceAdvanced Thermodynamics and Statistical MechanicsQuantum, superfluid, helium dynamicsQuantum many-body systems