Energy- and momentum-resolved Cooper-pair emission from a cuprate superconductor
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arXiv: 2611.09857v1 · Summary page
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Watching superconducting electrons leave as a pair
Ordinary photoemission measures electrons one at a time, although superconductivity depends on electrons pairing up. A cuprate experiment instead measures the energies and momenta of emitted electron pairs. Below the superconducting transition, the researchers find a peak at zero pair binding energy and zero pair momentum that disappears in the normal state—the signature they identify with Cooper-pair emission.
There is also an unexpected twist: cooling broadens the distribution of how energy is divided between the electrons, while leaving the width of their total energy nearly unchanged. The authors rule out instrumental resolution, static disorder and thermal broadening as explanations, and point instead to scattering involving collective excitations. The technique could therefore do more than detect pairing: it could expose how a pair interacts with the surrounding quantum material.
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