Ab initio theory of superconductivity. II. Application to elemental metals

The density functional theory for superconductors developed in the preceding article is applied to the calculation of superconducting properties of several elemental metals. In particular, we present results for the transition temperature, for the gap at zero temperature, and for thermodynamic properties like the specific heat. We obtain an unprecedented agreement with experimental results. Superconductors with both strong and weak electron-phonon coupling are equally well described. This demonstrates that, as far as conventional superconductivity is concerned, the first-principles prediction of superconducting properties is feasible.