Dynamic Melting and Decoupling of the Vortex Lattice in Layered Superconductors.pdfVIP

Dynamic Melting and Decoupling of the Vortex Lattice in Layered Superconductors Stefan Scheidl1,2 and Valerii M. Vinokur2 1Institut f¨ur Theoretische Physik, Universit¨at zu K¨oln, Z¨ulpicher Str. 77, D-50937 K¨oln, Germany 7 2Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439 9 (February 1, 2008) 9 1 The dynamic phase diagram of vortex lattices driven in disorder is calculated in two and three c dimensions. A modified Lindemann criterion for the fluctuations of the distance of neighboring e vortices is used, which unifies previous analytic approaches to the equilibrium and non-equilibrium D phase transitions. The temperature shifts of the dynamic melting and decoupling transitions are found to scale inversely proportional to large driving currents. A comparison with two-dimensional 2 simulations shows that this phenomenological approach can provide quantitative estimate for the 2 location of these transitions. ] n PACS numbers: 74.25.Dw, 74.40.+k, 74.60.Ge o c - I. INTRODUCTION diagram could be eliminated by applying a driving cur- r p rent. The most prominent example for such a feature u is the first-order melting transition of the vortex lat- s The prediction of nonequilibrium phase tr