Structural Transition Kinetics and Activated Behavior in the Superconducting Vortex Lattice

• Main Authors: Louden, E. R, Rastovski, C, Kuhn, S. J, Leishman, A. W. D, DeBeer-Schmitt, L, Dewhurst, C. D, Zhigadlo, N. D, Eskildsen, M. R
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 14-12-2018
• Subjects: Physics - Superconductivity
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1812.05970

Phys. Rev. B 99, 060502 (2019) Using small-angle neutron scattering, we investigated the behavior of a
metastable vortex lattice state in MgB2 as it is driven towards equilibrium by
an AC magnetic field. This shows an activated behavior, where the AC field
amplitude and cycle count are equivalent to, respectively, an effective
"temperature" and "time". The activation barrier increases as the metastable
state is suppressed, corresponding to an aging of the vortex lattice.
Furthermore, we find a cross-over from a partial to a complete suppression of
metastable domains depending on the AC field amplitude, which may empirically
be described by a single free parameter. This represents a novel kind of
collective vortex behavior, most likely governed by the nucleation and growth
of equilibrium vortex lattice domains.