Stability of the Bragg glass phase in a layered geometry

TL;DR

This paper investigates the stability of the Bragg glass phase in layered vortex systems with disorder, showing it remains stable at low temperatures and transitions to a 2D vortex glass with increased disorder.

Contribution

It demonstrates the stability conditions of the 3D Bragg glass phase in layered geometries and characterizes its transition to a 2D vortex glass with disorder increase.

Findings

3D Bragg glass stable for weak disorder below T_G

Transition to 2D vortex glass with increased disorder

Weakly first order transition between phases

Abstract

We study the stability of the dislocation-free Bragg glass phase in a layered geometry consisting of coupled parallel planes of d=1+1 vortex lines lying within each plane, in the presence of impurity disorder. Using renormalization group, replica variational calculations and physical arguments we show that at temperatures $T<T_G$ the 3D Bragg glass phase is always stable for weak disorder. It undergoes a weakly first order transition into a decoupled 2D vortex glass upon increase of disorder.