Anomalous Sliding Friction and Peak Effect near the Flux Lattice Melting Transition

Abstract

Recent experiments have revealed a giant "peak effect" in ultrapure high $T_c$ superconductors. Moreover, the new data show that the peak effect coincides exactly with the melting transition of the underlying flux lattice. In this work, we show using dynamical scaling arguments that the friction due to the pinning centers acting on the flux lattice develops a singularity near a continuous phase transition and can diverge for many systems. The magnitude of the nonlinear sliding friction of the flux lattice scales with this atomistic friction. Thus, the nonlinear conductance should diverge for a true continuous transition in the flux lattice or peak at a weakly first order transition or for systems of finite size.

4 pages, to appear in Phys. Rev. B

References in corpus (2)

• Dynamical transitions and sliding friction in the two-dimensional Frenkel-Kontorova model
• Dynamics near the Surface Reconstruction of W(100)

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Peak Effect versus Skating in High Temperature Nanofriction
• Experimental phase diagram of moving vortices
• Nonlinear sliding friction of adsorbed overlayers on disordered substrates
• Irreversible Dynamics of Abrikosov Vortices in Type-two Superconductors
• Brownian dynamics study of driven partially pinned solid in the presence of square array of pinning centers: Enhanced pinning close to the melting transition
• Alkali Halide Surfaces Near Melting: Wetting and Nanofriction Properties