Unzipping Vortices in Type-II Superconductors
Abstract
The unzipping of vortex lines using magnetic-force microscopy from extended defects is studied theoretically. We study both the unzipping isolated vortex from common defects, such as columnar pins and twin-planes, and the unzipping of a vortex from a plane in the presence of other vortices. We show, using analytic and numerical methods, that the universal properties of the unzipping transition of a single vortex depend only on the dimensionality of the defect in the presence and absence of disorder. For the unzipping of a vortex from a plane populated with many vortices is shown to be very sensitive to the properties of the vortices in the two-dimensional plane. In particular such unzipping experiments can be used to measure the ``Luttinger liquid parameter'' of the vortices in the plane. In addition we suggest a method for measuring the line tension of the vortex directly using the experiments.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0706.2684,
title = {Unzipping Vortices in Type-II Superconductors},
author = {Yariv Kafri and David R. Nelson and Anatoli Polkovnikov},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0706.2684},
year = {2011}
}