Optical pumping of Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer superconductors

Motivated by the generation by optical pulses of nonthermal distributions of nuclear spins in quantum dots we investigate the effect of optical pulses applied to Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superconductors. Using time-dependent mean-field theory formulated with Anderson pseudospins, we study the electronic configurations and the energy deposited in the system by optical pulses. The pulses are included by Peierls substitution and we study short rectangular pulses as well as idealized $\ensuremath{\delta}$ pulses. Already a few and even a single pulse generates highly nontrivial distributions of electron expectation values which we simulate numerically and explain analytically based on the linearization of the equations of motion. These results suggest so far unexplored experimental possibilities for the optical control of superconducting states.