Universal Critical Dynamic Form of the Vortex-Lattice Melting Line

TL;DR

This paper presents a universal form of the vortex-lattice melting line that incorporates critical behavior, fitting experimental data across various cuprate superconductors and revealing dimensionality changes in vortex fluctuations.

Contribution

It introduces a modified vortex-lattice melting line formula that accounts for critical dynamics and fits experimental data without requiring a crossover in vortex fluctuation dimensionality.

Findings

The new melting line formula fits data for Y(1-x)Pr(x)Ba2Cu3O6.97 samples.

No crossover in vortex dynamics from 3D to 2D is observed in the studied temperature range.

A change in critical exponents nu and z correlates with dimensionality changes in vortex fluctuations.

Abstract

A modified form of the vortex-lattice melting line is arrived at by incorporating the effects of critical behavior at the melting transition. Beginning with the universal form established by Blatter and Ivlev [Physical Review Letters 70, 2621 (1993)] which includes both thermal and quantum fluctuations, we then use the vortex relaxation time of a vortex-glass with a finite transition temperature that follows from the scaling theory of Fisher, Fisher, and Huse [Physical Review B, 43, 130 (1991)]. This new form of the melting line is demonstrated to fit over the entire melting line of Y(1-x)Pr(x)Ba2Cu3O6.97 (x = 0 - 0.4) samples within the temperature range 0.03 < T/Tc < 1 (H < 45 tesla) implying no crossover in dynamics from 3D to 2D. Generically it can be seen that a change in dimensionality of the vortex fluctuations along the melting line must be accompanied by a corresponding change in the critical exponents nu and z. Such a change is observed for the highly anisotropic cuprate superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8.