The Moving Glass Phase of Dirty Type II Superconductors

TL;DR

This paper investigates the behavior of vortices in dirty type II superconductors under strong currents, revealing a moving glass phase characterized by static channels and anisotropic order, supported by numerical simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a modified moving glass model accounting for anisotropy and demonstrates the existence of a finite transverse critical current in vortex motion.

Findings

Vortices form static channels at high currents.

Transverse order exhibits quasi long-range correlations.

A finite transverse critical current exists.

Abstract

We study numerically the motion of vortices in dirty type II superconductors. In two dimensions at strong driving currents, vortices form highly correlated ``static channels''. The static structure factor exhibits convincing scaling behaviour, demonstrating quasi long range translational order in the transverse direction. However order in the longitudinal direction is only short range. We clearly establish the existence of a finite transverse critical current, suggesting strong barriers against small transverse driving forces. These results are most consistently interpreted in terms of the recently proposed moving glass picture, modified to account for the strong anisotropy.