A New Method in the Theory of Superconductivity

Abstract The method of canonical transformations proposed by one of the authors ten years ago in connection with a microscopic theory of superfluidity for Bose systems, is generalized here to Fermi systems, and forms the basis of a method for investigating the problem of superconductivity. Starting from Fröhlich's Hamiltonian, the energy of the superconducting ground state and the one‐Fermion and collective excitations corresponding to this state are obtained. It turns out that the final formulae for the ground state and one‐Fermion excitations recently obtained by Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer are correct in the first approximation. The physical picture appears to be closer to the one proposed by Schafroth, Butler and Blatt. The effect on superconductivity of the Coulomb interaction between the electrons is analyzed in detail. A criterion for the superfluidity of a Fermi system with a four‐line vertex Hamiltonian is established.