Defective Vortex Lattices in Layered Superconductors with Point Pins at the Extreme Type-II Limit

TL;DR

This paper investigates the behavior of vortex lattices in layered superconductors with point pins at the extreme type-II limit, revealing defective vortex lattices, vortex entanglement, and phase transitions relevant to high-temperature superconductors.

Contribution

It provides a duality analysis of the frustrated XY model to elucidate vortex lattice defects and phase coherence in layered superconductors with weak Josephson coupling.

Findings

Isolated layers have phase-coherent defective vortex lattices at low temperature.

Weak interlayer coupling leads to an entangled vortex solid with weak interlayer superconductivity.

A vortex liquid state exhibits an inverted specific heat anomaly matching experimental observations in YBCO.

Abstract

The mixed phase of layered superconductors with no magnetic screening is studied through a partial duality analysis of the corresponding frustrated XY model in the presence of weak random point pins. Isolated layers exhibit a defective vortex lattice at low temperature that is phase coherent. Sufficiently weak Josephson coupling between adjacent layers results in an entangled vortex solid that exhibits weak superconductivity across layers. The corresponding vortex liquid state shows an inverted specific heat anomaly that we propose accounts for that seen in YBCO. A three-dimensional vortex lattice with dislocations occurs at stronger coupling. This crossover sheds light on the apparent discrepancy concerning the observation of a vortex-glass phase in recent Monte Carlo simulations of the same XY model.