Steric repulsion and van der Waals attraction between flux lines in disordered high Tc superconductors

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that impurities in anisotropic or layered high-Tc superconductors induce a van der Waals attraction between flux lines, significantly altering the low magnetic field and temperature phase diagram compared to the pure thermal case.

Contribution

It introduces the concept that impurity-induced van der Waals attraction affects flux line interactions in disordered high-Tc superconductors, extending previous pure thermal models.

Findings

Impurities induce a van der Waals attraction between flux lines.

The combined effects of attraction and repulsion alter the phase diagram.

Disorder significantly impacts flux line behavior in high-Tc superconductors.

Abstract

We show that in anisotropic or layered superconductors impurities induce a van der Waals attraction between flux lines. This attraction together with the disorder induced repulsion may change the low B - low T phase diagram significantly from that of the pure thermal case considered recently by Blatter and Geshkenbein [Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 4958 (1996)].