Related papers: Defect formation in superconducting rings: externa…
Simple causal arguments put forward by Kibble and Zurek suggest that the scaling behaviour of condensed matter at continuous transitions is related to the familiar universality classes of the systems at quasi-equilibrium. Although proposed…
In this paper we use spontaneous flux production in annular superconductors to shed light on the Kibble-Zurek scenario. In particular, we examine the effects of finite size and external fields, neither of which is directly amenable to the…
Rings are a model system for studying phase coherence in one dimension. Superconducting rings have states with uniform phase windings that are integer multiples of 2$\pi$ called fluxoid states. When the energy difference between these…
We perform a numeric study of the flux transitions in a superconducting ring at fixed temperature, while the applied field is swept at an ideally slow rate. The current around the ring and its free energy are evaluated. We partially explain…
We carry out numerical simulations to investigate spontaneous vortex formation during a temperature quench of a superconductor film from the normal to the superconducting phase in the absence of an external magnetic field. Our results agree…
Fluctuations are important near phase transitions, where they can be difficult to describe quantitatively. Superconductivity in mesoscopic rings is particularly intriguing because the critical temperature is an oscillatory function of…
We have observed spontaneous fluxoid generation in thin-film rings of the amorphous superconductor Mo$_3$Si, cooled through the normal-superconducting transition, as a function of quench rate and externally applied magnetic field, using a…
Type II superconductors, consisting of superconducting domains embedded in a normal or insulating matrix, undergo a rounded phase transition. Indeed, the correlation length cannot grow beyond the spatial extent of the domains. Accordingly,…
We report high-resolution specific heat data on a high-quality single crystal of the classical superconductor V3Si, which reveal tiny lambda-shape anomalies appearing superimposed onto the BCS specific heat jump at the superconducting…
We report on the first experimental verification of the Zurek-Kibble scenario in an isolated superconducting ring over a wide parameter range. The probability of creating a single flux quantum spontaneously during the fast…
The intermediate 3D XY scaling theory of superconductivity at zero and nonzero magnetic fields is developed, based only upon the dimensional hypothesis $B\sim (Length)^{-2}$. Universal as well as nonuniversal aspects of the theory are…
We investigate the effect of thermal fluctuations on the (mean-field) Abrikosov phase. The lower critical dimension of the superconducting phase is three, indicating the absence of the Abrikosov phase for dimensions d<3. Within the d=3…
Type II superconductors can trap a transient magnetic field and become "cryomagnets" that are very useful for applications. During this process, flux jumps i.e. sudden jumps of the total magnetization occur and hinder the properties of…
The effect of an external magnetic field on the finite temperature transition of QCD is studied. We measure thermodynamic observables including the quark condensates and susceptibilities and the strange quark number susceptibility. We…
We address here the superconductivity quenching under an external magnetic field of amplitudes up to 1 T and in the so-called "thermal smallness" condition, when the microbridge width becomes smaller than the thermal diffusion length of…
In order to mimic the phase changes in the primordial Big Bang, several "cosmological" solid-state experiments have been conceived, during the last decade, to investigate the spontaneous symmetry breaking in superconductors and superfluids…
It has been argued by Zurek and Kibble that the likelihood of producing defects in a continuous phase transition depends in a characteristic way on the quench rate. In this paper we discuss an improved experiment for measuring the…
Thermal and magnetic effects in a system consisting of thin layers of coupled Ising spins with $S=1/2$ and $S=1$ are considered. The specific heat and the correlation length display maxima at two different temperatures. It is discussed in…
The effect of an external (electro)magnetic field on the finite temperature transition of QCD is studied. We generate configurations at various values of the quantized magnetic flux with $N_f=2+1$ flavors of stout smeared staggered quarks,…
The smaller the system, typically - the higher is the impact of fluctuations. In narrow superconducting wires sufficiently close to the critical temperature Tc thermal fluctuations are responsible for the experimentally observable finite…