Phase Transitions in Isolated Vortex Chains

Abstract

In very anisotropic layered superconductors (e.g. Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_x$) a tilted magnetic field can penetrate as two co-existing lattices of vortices parallel and perpendicular to the layers. At low out-of-plane fields the perpendicular vortices form a set of isolated vortex chains, which have recently been observed in detail with scanning Hall-probe measurements. We present calculations that show a very delicate stability of this isolated-chain state. As the vortex density increases along the chain there is a first-order transition to a buckled chain, and then the chain will expel vortices in a continuous transition to a composite-chain state. At low densities there is an instability towards clustering, due to a long-range attraction between the vortices on the chain, and at very low densities it becomes energetically favorable to form a tilted chain, which may explain the sudden disappearance of vortices along the chains seen in recent experiments.

9 pages, 10 figures

References in corpus (2)

• The London theory of the crossing-vortex lattice in highly anisotropic layered superconductors
• Attraction between pancakes vortices in the crossing lattices of layered superconductors

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Vortex-chain phases in layered superconductors
• Josephson vortices and solitons inside pancake vortex lattice in layered superconductors
• Vortex Chains in Anisotropic Superconductors
• Analysis of Magnetic Vortex Dissipation in Sn-Segregated Boundaries in Nb${}_3$Sn Superconducting RF Cavities
• Dynamics of vortex quadrupoles in nonrotating trapped Bose-Einstein condensate
• Incommensuration Effects and Dynamics in Vortex Chains
• Dynamic interactions between pancake vortex stacks and Josephson vortices in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 single crystals: relaxation and ratchets
• Tilted and crossing vortex chains in layered superconductors
• Numerical study of staggered fermion on anisotropic lattices
• Pre-melting of crossing vortex lattices