Mechanisms of Phase-Slip Magnetoresistance in Superconducting Quantum Wires

Superconductivity in quantum wires is prone to phase-slip fluctuation processes that result in the resistive tails below the nominal transition temperature Tc. In the immediate proximity to Tc phase-slips are predominantly thermally-activated and can be described by Langer-Ambegaokar-McCumber-Halperin (LAMH) model derived on the basis of the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau (GL) theory. In this work, we discuss mechanisms of phase-slip resistance in magnetic field ranging from the depairing effects to modification of the energy cost of LAMH instanton and quantum fluctuations that cannot be captured with the GL theory. Particular attention is devoted to phase-slips in proximitized semiconductor wires where effects of spin-orbit coupling lead to additional mechanisms of magnetoresistance.