On the magnetization of two-dimensional superconductors

TL;DR

This paper investigates the magnetization behavior of two-dimensional superconductors near the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition, revealing complex critical behavior and fluctuation effects that challenge previous assumptions, with implications for cuprate superconductors.

Contribution

It provides a detailed theoretical analysis showing that the critical magnetization is not field independent and highlights fluctuation effects in the low temperature phase.

Findings

Critical magnetization is field dependent, contrary to naive scaling.

Significant fluctuation renormalization affects the mean-field results.

Comparison with cuprate data supports the theoretical predictions.

Abstract

We calculate the magnetization of a two-dimensional superconductor in a perpendicular magnetic field near its Kosterlitz-Thouless transition and at lower temperatures. We find that the critical behavior is more complex than assumed in the literature and that, in particular, the critical magnetization is {\it not} field independent as naive scaling predicts. In the low temperature phase we find a substantial fluctuation renormalization of the mean-field result. We compare our analysis with the data on the cuprates.