TY - GEN A1 - Seibold, Götz A1 - Benfatto, Lara A1 - Castellani, Claudio T1 - Application of the Mattis-Bardeen theory in strongly disordered superconductors T2 - Physical Review B N2 - The low-energy optical conductivity of conventional superconductors is usually well described by Mattis-Bardeen (MB) theory, which predicts the onset of absorption above an energy corresponding to twice the superconducing (SC) gap parameter Δ. Recent experiments on strongly disordered superconductors have challenged the application of the MB formulas due to the occurrence of additional spectral weight at low energies below 2Δ. Here we identify three crucial items that have to be included in the analysis of optical-conductivity data for these systems: (a) the correct identification of the optical threshold in the Mattis-Bardeen theory and its relation with the gap value extracted from the measured density of states, (b) the gauge-invariant evaluation of the current-current response function needed to account for the optical absorption by SC collective modes, and (c) the inclusion into the MB formula of the energy dependence of the density of states present already above Tc. By computing the optical conductivity in the disordered attractive Hubbard model, we analyze the relevance of all these items, and we provide a compelling scheme for the analysis and interpretation of the optical data in real materials. KW - Superconductivity KW - Superconductivity fluctuations KW - Impurities in superconductors Y1 - 2017 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-UBICO/frontdoor/index/index/docId/20428 UR - https://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.96.144507 VL - 96 IS - 14 SP - 144507 ER -