The Meissner effect in superconductors: emergence versus reductionism.

The Meissner effect, the expulsion of magnetic field from the interior of a metal entering the superconducting state, is arguably the most fundamental property of superconductors, discovered in 1933. The conventional theory of superconductivity developed in 1957 is generally believed to fully explain the Meissner effect. We will review the arguments that support this consensus, rooted in the concept of emergence. However, recent work has shown that there are questions related to momentum conservation in the process of magnetic field expulsion that have not been addressed within the conventional theory. Within a reductionist approach, it has been proposed that those questions can only be resolved by introducing physics that is not part of the conventional theory, namely that there is radial motion of electric charge in the transition process. This is consistent with the behavior of classical plasmas, where motion of magnetic field lines is always associated with motion of charges. We review how this approach explains puzzles associated with momentum transfer between electrons and ions in the Meissner effect. Whether or not radial charge motion is associated with the Meissner effect has fundamental implications regarding superconductivity mechanisms in materials and regarding strategies to search for new materials with higher superconducting transition temperatures. Therefore, adjudication of this question is urgent and important. Contents I. Introduction 1 II. What the Meissner effect is and is not 2 III. The Meissner-Ochsenfeld discovery, and why it took so long 2 IV. The Keesom experiments 3 V. Thermodynamics of the Meissner effect 3 VI. How London electrodynamics explains the Meissner effect 4 VII. How BCS theory and Ginzburg-Landau theory explain the Meissner effect 5 VIII. Puzzles with momentum in the Meissner effect and its reverse 7 IX. The puzzles in more detail 8 X. Electromagnetic energy flow 12 XI. Maxwell pressure and Meissner pressure 13 XII. Thermodynamic forces versus real forces, emergence versus reductionism 13 XIII. Overview of a proposed reductionist explanation 14 XIV. Charge expulsion and Alfven's theorem 15 XV. Momentum transfers by radial motion 16 XVI. Momentum transfer to the ions 17 XVII. Momentum transfer to the electrons XVIII.