A lower bound for the BCS functional with boundary conditions at infinity

We consider a many-body system of fermionic atoms interacting via a local pair potential and subject to an external potential within the framework of Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory. We measure the free energy of the whole sample with respect to the free energy of a reference state which allows us to define a BCS functional with boundary conditions at infinity. Our main result is a lower bound for this energy functional in terms of expressions that typically appear in Ginzburg-Landau functionals.