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Phys. Rev. B 66, 104527 (2002) [6 pages]

Competition between columnar pins and vortex screening: A doubly reentrant phase diagram

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Ajay Nandgaonkar1, D. G. Kanhere1, and Nandini Trivedi2
1Department of Physics, University of Pune, Pune 411007, India
2Department of Theoretical Physics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai 400005, India

Received 20 November 2001; revised 25 April 2002; published 30 September 2002

We study the phase diagram of flux lines in superconductors with columnar pins. Based on numerical exact diagonalization simulations on small clusters, we get two phases of vortices: A low-temperature pinned glass with diverging tilt modulus and a high-temperature delocalized entangled vortex liquid. For random potential disorder we find a new phase transition temperature TBG from a pinned Bose glass to an entangled liquid that reduces with increasing vortex density. This occurs primarily because vortices screen the disorder potential and generate an effective weaker random potential with increasing vortex density. For a fixed fraction of randomly placed attractive columnar pins, we find a Mott-insulating phase when the vortex density exactly matches the density of pins at the matching field B=Bφ. We also find a transition from a strongly pinned Bose glass for B<Bφ to a weakly pinned Bose glass for B>Bφ as the vortex density is varied.

© 2002 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.66.104527
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevB.66.104527
PACS:
74.60.Ge, 05.30.Jp