No Arabic abstract
We study the vortex-line lattice and liquid phases of a clean type-II superconductor by means of Monte Carlo simulations of the lattice London model. Motivated by a recent controversy regarding the presence, within this model, of a vortex-liquid regime with longitudinal superconducting coherence over long length scales, we directly compare two different ways to calculate the longitudinal coherence. For an isotropic superconductor, we interpret our results in terms of a temperature regime within the liquid phase in which longitudinal superconducting coherence extends over length scales larger than the system thickness studied. We note that this regime disappears in the moderately anisotropic case due to a proliferation, close to the flux-line lattice melting temperature, of vortex loops between the layers.
The vortex lattice (VL) symmetry and orientation in clean type-II superconductors depends sensitively on the host material anisotropy, vortex density and temperature, frequently leading to rich phase diagrams. Typically, a well-ordered VL is taken to imply a ground state configuration for the vortex-vortex interaction. Using neutron scattering we studied the VL in MgB2 for a number of field-temperature histories, discovering an unprecedented degree of metastability in connection with a known, second-order rotation transition. This allows, for the first time, structural studies of a well-ordered, non-equilibrium VL. While the mechanism responsible for the longevity of the metastable states is not resolved, we speculate it is due to a jamming of VL domains, preventing a rotation to the ground state orientation.
Vortex structures in mesoscopic cylinder placed in external magnetic field are studied under the general de Gennes boundary condition for the order parameter corresponding to the suppression of surface superconductivity. The Ginzburg-Landau equations are solved based on trial functions for the order parameter for vortex-free, single-vortex, multivortex, and giant vortex phases. The equilibrium vortex diagrams in the plane of external field and cylinder radius and magnetization curves are calculated at different values of de Gennes extrapolation length characterizing the boundary condition for the order parameter. The comparison of the obtained variational results with some available exact solutions shows good accuracy of our approach.
We study the energetics of superconducting vortices in the SO(5) model for high-$T_c$ materials proposed by Zhang. We show that for a wide range of parameters normally corresponding to type II superconductivity, the free energy per unit flux $FF(m)$ of a vortex with $m$ flux quanta is a decreasing function of $m$, provided the doping is close to its critical value. This implies that the Abrikosov lattice is unstable, a behaviour typical of type I superconductors. For dopings far from the critical value, $FF(m)$ can become very flat, indicating a less rigid vortex lattice, which would melt at a lower temperature than expected for a BCS superconductor.
It has long been proposed that doping a chiral spin liquid (CSL) or fractional quantum Hall state can give rise to topological superconductivity. Despite of intensive effort, definitive evidences still remain lacking. We address this problem by studying the $t$-$J$ model supplemented by time-reversal symmetry breaking chiral interaction $J_chi$ on the triangular lattice using density-matrix renormalization group with a finite concentration $delta$ of doped holes. It has been established that the undoped, i.e., $delta$=0, system has a CSL ground state in the parameter region $0.32le J_chi/J le 0.56$. Upon light doping, we find that the ground state of the system is consistent with a Luther-Emery liquid with power-law superconducting and charge-density-wave correlations but short-range spin-spin correlations. In particular, the superconducting correlations, whose pairing symmetry is consistent with $dpm id$-wave, are dominant at all hole doping concentrations. Our results provide direct evidences that doping the CSL on the triangular lattice can naturally give rise to topological superconductivity.
In discussing the phase transition of the three-dimensional complex |psi|^4 theory, we study the geometrically defined vortex-loop network as well as the magnetic properties of the system in the vicinity of the critical point. Using high-precision Monte Carlo techniques we investigate if both of them exhibit the same critical behavior leading to the same critical exponents and hence to a consistent description of the phase transition. Different percolation observables are taken into account and compared with each other. We find that different connectivity definitions for constructing the vortex-loop network lead to different results in the thermodynamic limit, and the percolation thresholds do not coincide with the thermodynamic phase transition point.