Temperature dependence of the functional derivative and empirical estimation of in the superconductors and
Phys. Rev. B 113, 104521 – Published 25 March, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/dyxf-5mdl
Abstract
The functional derivative of the superconducting critical temperature with respect to the Eliashberg electron-phonon spectral function is commonly used as a diagnostic tool to identify the phonon-frequency regions that most effectively enhance . In this work, the explicit effect of temperature on the calculation of is investigated within the isotropic Eliashberg formalism for the conventional high- superconductors and over the pressure ranges in which their have been measured. The results show that the functional derivative is strongly temperature dependent and, for every pressure in both systems, exhibits a robust local minimum in the landscape, characterized by . This characteristic point corresponds to a thermal reference condition where is least sensitive to redistributions of spectral weight in . The extracted correlates approximately linearly with , while the reduced ratio correlates with and clusters around 7, placing close to the canonical optimal-frequency scale –. Motivated by these scalings, an empirical relation (mapping) is proposed that establishes a correlation between the experimental critical temperature and characteristic quantities extracted from the temperature-dependent functional response . Over the explored pressure ranges, the resulting estimates reproduce the experimental values with absolute errors of 0.1–4.9 K (mean absolute error of 2.56 K). While the mapping is empirical and has been validated only within the closely related family and an isotropic treatment, the systematic behavior with pressure and isotopic substitution suggests that the identified local minimum is a robust feature of the functional derivative, motivating broader tests in other electron-phonon superconductors, including anisotropic and multiband systems.