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The Nature of the Cooper Pair - University of Liverpool

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We now want to find out if two electrons can attract in <strong>the</strong><br />

way just described, and form a bound state - a <strong>Cooper</strong> pair.<br />

A bound state refers to a wavefunction that has a finite size,<br />

like <strong>the</strong> wavefunction <strong>of</strong> an electron in an atom. This means<br />

that <strong>the</strong> value <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> wavefunction falls <strong>of</strong>f to zero after some<br />

distance.<br />

In contrast, a free electron is not in a bound state. Its<br />

wavefunction may be e ikx , which has <strong>the</strong> same amplitude at<br />

any distance.<br />

Since we treat <strong>the</strong> potential as effectively spherical, we can use<br />

<strong>the</strong> same form <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Schrodinger equation as for <strong>the</strong> hydrogen<br />

atom.<br />

Superconductivity 13

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