Freezing transition of the vortex liquid in anisotropic superconductors

Abstract

We study the solid-liquid transition of a model of pancake vortices in laminar superconductors using a density functional theory of freezing. The physical properties of the system along the melting line are discussed in detail. We show that there is a very good agreement with experimental data in the shape and position of the first order transition in the phase diagram and in the magnitude and temperature dependence of the magnetic induction jump at the transition. We analyze the validity of the Lindemann melting criterion and the Hansen-Verlet freezing criterion. Both criteria are shown to be good to predict the phase diagram in the region where a first order phase transition is experimentally observed.

arXiv comment9 pages, 10 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Low-Field Phase Diagram of Layered Superconductors: The Role of Electromagnetic Coupling
• Density-functional theory of freezing of vortex-liquid in quasi two-dimensional superconductors

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Vortex matter in layered superconductors without Josephson coupling: numerical simulations within a mean-field approach
• Melting and structure of the vortex solid in strongly anisotropic layered superconductors with random columnar pins
• Density functional theory of vortex lattice melting in layered superconductors: a mean-field--substrate approach
• Flux-lattice melting in LaO${}_{1-x}$F${}_x$FeAs: first-principles prediction
• Surface melting of the vortex lattice
• Liquid-to-liquid phase transition in pancake vortex systems
• Surface Melting of the Vortex Lattice in Layered Superconductors: Density Functional Theory