Superconductivity in the attractive Hubbard model: functional renormalization group analysis

We present a functional renormalization group analysis of superconductivity in the ground state of the attractive Hubbard model on a square lattice. Spontaneous symmetry breaking is treated in a purely fermionic setting via anomalous propagators and anomalous effective interactions. In addition to the anomalous interactions arising already in the reduced BCS model, effective interactions with three incoming legs and one outgoing leg (and vice versa) occur. We accomplish their integration into the usual diagrammatic formalism by introducing a Nambu matrix for the effective interactions. From a random-phase approximation generalized through use of this matrix we conclude that the impact of the 3 + 1 effective interactions is limited, especially considering the effective interactions which are important for the determination of the order parameter. The exact hierarchy of flow equations for one-particle irreducible vertex functions is truncated on the two-particle level, with higher-order self-energy corrections included in a scheme proposed by Katanin (2004 Phys. Rev. B 70 115109). Using a parametrization of effective interactions by patches in momentum space, the flow equations can be integrated numerically to the lowest scales without encountering divergences. Momentum-shell as well as interaction-flow cutoff functions are used, including a small external field or a large external field and a counterterm, respectively. Both approaches produce momentum-resolved order parameter values directly from the microscopic model. The size of the superconducting gap is in reasonable agreement with expectations from other studies.