We study the effect of quenched disorder in the thermodynamic magnitudes entailed in the first-order vortex phase transition of the extremely layered Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8 + delta}$ compound. We track the temperature-evolution of the enthal
py and the entropy-jump at the vortex solidification transition by means of AC local magnetic measurements. Quenched disorder is introduced to the pristine samples by means of heavy-ion irradiation with Pb and Xe producing a random columnar-track pins distribution with different densities (matching field $B_{Phi}$). In contrast with previous magneto-optical reports, we find that the first-order phase transition persists for samples with $B_{Phi}$ up to 100,Gauss. For very low densities of quenched disorder (pristine samples), the evolution of the thermodynamic properties can be satisfactorily explained considering a negligible effect of pinning and only electromagnetic coupling between pancake vortices lying in adjacent CuO planes. This description is not satisfactory on increasing magnitude of quenched disorder.
In this work we revisit the vortex matter phase diagram in layered superconductors solving still open questions by means of AC and DC local magnetic measurements in the paradigmatic Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8}$ compound. We show that measuring w
ith AC magnetic techniques is mandatory in order to probe the bulk response of vortex matter, particularly at high-temperatures where surface barriers for vortex entrance dominate. From the $T_{rm FOT}$-evolution of the enthalpy and latent-heat at the transition we find that, contrary to previous reports, the nature of the dominant interlayer coupling is electromagnetic in the whole temperature range. By studying the dynamic properties of the phase located at $T gtrsim T_{rm FOT}$, we reveal the spanning in a considerable fraction of the phase diagram of a non-linear vortex phase suggesting bulk pinning might play a role even in the liquid vortex phase.
