Critical Behavior of the Flux-line Tension in Extreme Type-II Superconductors

Abstract

The entropic corrections to the flux-line energy of extreme type-II superconductors are computed using a schematic dual Villain model description of the flux quanta. We find that the temperature profile of the lower-critical field vanishes polynomially at the transition with an exponent $\nu \cong 2/3$ in the isotropic case, while it exhibits an inflection point for the case of weakly coupled layers in parallel magnetic field. It is argued that vestiges of these effects have already been observed in high-temperature superconductors.

12 pages of plain TeX, 2 postscipt figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. B

References in corpus (1)

• Layered XY-Models, Anyon Superconductors, and Spin-Liquids

Cited by in corpus (4)

• The Feshbach resonance and nanoscale phase separation in a polaron liquid near the quantum critical point for a polaron Wigner crystal
• On the Decoupling of Layered Superconducting Films in Parallel Magnetic Field
• Critical Behavior of Layered Superconducting Films in Parallel Magnetic Field
• Fermion Analogy for Layered Superconducting Films in Parallel Magnetic Field