Generalized holographic superconductors with higher derivative couplings

We introduce and study generalized holographic superconductors with higher derivative couplings between the field strength tensor and a complex scalar field, in four dimensional AdS black hole backgrounds. We study this theory in the probe limit, as well as with backreaction. There are multiple tuning parameters in the theory, and with two non-zero parameters, we show that the theory has a rich phase structure, and in particular, the transition from the normal to the superconducting phase can be tuned to be of first order or of second order within a window of one of these. This is established numerically as well as by computing the free energy of the boundary theory. We further present analytical results for the critical temperature of the model, and compare these with numerical analysis. Optical properties of this system are also studied numerically in the probe limit, and our results show evidence for negative refraction at low frequencies.