Effects of disorder on the vortex charge

TL;DR

This paper investigates how disorder, including vortex pinning and impurity scattering, affects the vortex charge in superconductors, revealing that impurities and temperature significantly influence the charge's magnitude and sign.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the impact of disorder and impurities on vortex charge, highlighting the conditions that alter its magnitude and sign.

Findings

Impurities significantly affect vortex charge.

Close vortex pairs have a notable charge interaction.

Temperature influences the vortex charge magnitude and sign.

Abstract

We study the influence of disorder on the vortex charge, both due to random pinning of the vortices and due to scattering off non-magnetic impurities. In the case when there are no impurities present, but the vortices are randomly distributed, the effect is very small, except when two or more vortices are close by. When impurities are present, they have a noticeable effect on the vortex charge. This, together with the effect of temperature, changes appreciably the vortex charge. In the case of an attractive impurity potential the sign of the charge naturally changes.