Topological singularities in periodic media: Ginzburg-Landau and core-radius approaches

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the emergence of topological singularities in periodic media using Ginzburg-Landau and core-radius models, employing $ ext{Gamma}$-convergence to understand vortex formation at different scales.

Contribution

It provides a detailed $ ext{Gamma}$-convergence analysis of energy functionals in periodic media, revealing scale-dependent vortex concentration phenomena.

Findings

$ ext{Gamma}$-limit characterized by vortex-like singularities

Identification of a scale parameter $ ext{lambda}$ governing concentration and homogenization

Demonstration of separation-of-scale effects in vortex formation

Abstract

We describe the emergence of topological singularities in periodic media within the Ginzburg-Landau model and the core-radius approach. The energy functionals of both models are denoted by $E_{\varepsilon,\delta}$, where $\varepsilon$ represent the coherence length (in the Ginzburg-Landau model) or the core-radius size (in the core-radius approach) and $\delta$ denotes the periodicity scale. We carry out the $\Gamma$-convergence analysis of $E_{\varepsilon,\delta}$ as $\varepsilon\to 0$ and $\delta=\delta_{\varepsilon}\to 0$ in the $|\log\varepsilon|$ scaling regime, showing that the $\Gamma$-limit consists in the energy cost of finitely many vortex-like point singularities of integer degree. After introducing the scale parameter (upon extraction of subsequences) $$ \lambda=\min\Bigl\{1,\lim_{\varepsilon\to0} {|\log \delta_{\varepsilon}|\over|\log{\varepsilon}|}\Bigr\}, $$ we show that in a sense we always have a separation-of-scale effect: at scales less than $\varepsilon^\lambda$ we first have a concentration process around some vortices whose location is subsequently optimized, while for scales larger than $\varepsilon^\lambda$ the concentration process takes place "after" homogenization.