Phase Transitions of the Flux Line Lattice in High-Temperature Superconductors with Weak Columnar and Point Disorder

Abstract

We study the effects of weak columnar and point disorder on the vortex-lattice phase transitions in high temperature superconductors. The combined effect of thermal fluctuations and of quenched disorder is investigated using a simplified cage model. For columnar disorder the problem maps into a quantum particle in a harmonic + random potential. We use the variational approximation to show that columnar and point disorder have opposite effect on the position of the melting line as observed experimentally. Replica symmetry breaking plays a role at the transition into a vortex glass at low temperatures.

4 pages in 2 columns format + 2 eps figs included, uses RevTeX and multicol.sty

References in corpus (3)

• Irreversibility, Mechanical Entanglement and Thermal Melting in Superconducting Vortex Crystals with Point Impurities
• Quantum fluctuations and glassy behavior: The case of a quantum particle in a random potential
• Quantum Monte Carlo simulations of a particle in a random potential

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• Bragg-Bose glass phase in vortex states of high-$T_{\mathrm{c}}$ superconductors with sparse and weak columnar defects
• Phase diagram of the vortex system in layered superconductors with strong columnar pinning
• Disordered periodic systems at the upper critical dimension
• Localization of a polymer in random media: Relation to the localization of a quantum particle
• Vortex lattice melting in layered superconductors with periodic columnar pins
• Phase diagram of randomly pinned vortex matter in layered superconductors: dependence on the details of the point pinning
• Phase diagram of vortex matter in layered superconductors with random point pinning
• Solvable model of a polymer in random media with long ranged disorder correlations
• Large time dynamics and aging of a polymer chain in a random potential
• Instability and Fluctuations of Flux Lines with Point Impurities in a Parallel Current
• Melting of Flux Lines in an Alternating Parallel Current
• Directed polymers on a Cayley tree with spatially correlated disorder
• Domain wall roughening in dipolar films in the presence of disorder
• Weak point disorder in strongly fluctuating flux-line liquids