There are Asymmetric Minimizers for the One-Dimensional Ginzburg-Landau Model of Superconductivity

We study a boundary value problem associated with a system of two second order differential equations with cubic nonlinearity which model a film of superconductor material subjected to a tangential magnetic field. We show that for an appropriate range of parameters there are {\it asymmetric} solutions, and only trivial {\it symmetric} solutions. We then show that the associated energy function is negative for the asymmetric solutions, and zero for the trivial symmetric solution. It follows that a global minimizer of the energy is asymmetric.