Ground state properties of fluxlines in a disordered environment

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel numerical method based on combinatorial optimization to accurately determine the ground states of multi-fluxline systems in disordered environments, enabling detailed analysis of various physical models.

Contribution

A new exact ground state calculation method for multi-fluxline systems with disorder, applicable to multiple models including vortex glasses and sine-Gordon systems.

Findings

Effective computation of ground states for complex fluxline models

Insights into fluxline behavior in disordered environments

Applicability to various physical systems with disorder

Abstract

A new numerical method to calculate exact ground states of multi-fluxline systems with quenched disorder is presented, which is based on the minimum cost flow algorithm from combinatorial optimization. We discuss several models that can be studied with this method including their specific implementations, physically relevant observables and results: 1) the N-line model with N fluxlines (or directed polymers) in a d-dimensional environment with point and/or columnar disorder and hard or soft core repulsion; 2) the vortex glass model for a disordered superconductor in the strong screening limit and 3) the Sine-Gordon model with random pase shifts in the strong coupling limit.