ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the calculation of a number of system properties within the pairing approximation. Since the BCS theory was originally proposed, attempts to justify the pairing correlations basic to the theory have proceeded along two lines. The first approach has been to apply the BCS theory to a wide variety of phenomena in superconductors and check the theoretical predictions of the pairing approximation against experiment. The second approach has been to treat by various approximate methods the residual interactions neglected within the pairing scheme, hoping to show that these residual interactions introduce no major change in the predicted properties of the system. The interaction Hamiltonian, being a one-body operator, can at most change the state of one electron. While the majority of the electron–phonon interaction has been accounted for in forming the wave functions for the normal and superconducting states, there remains the part corresponding to resonant phonon absorption and emission processes.
