Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 81 2 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For real and , introduce the particle-hole column . Its quadratic block is the Bogoliubov--de Gennes HamiltonianThe BCS coherence factors can be chosen to obeyWith , choose the sign of to match . The rotation diagonalizes the matrix to . Reordering and restoring the mean-field constant givesThe inverse transformation is and . Both annihilate . Since every positive-energy quasiparticle mode is empty, the normalized BCS ground state isEach momentum label refers to the pair once; distinct labels use disjoint single-particle spin states.