• DOI:10.1103/PhysRevResearch.1.033057
• Corpus ID: 195766852

Hyperuniform vortex patterns at the surface of type-II superconductors

@article{Rumi2019HyperuniformVP,
  title={Hyperuniform vortex patterns at the surface of type-II superconductors},
  author={Gonzalo Rumi and Jazm{\'i}n Arag{\'o}n S{\'a}nchez and Federico Elias and Ra{\'u}l Cort{\'e}s Maldonado and Joaqu'in Puig and N{\'e}stor Ren{\'e} Cejas Bolecek and G. Nieva and Marcin Konczykowski and Yanina Fasano and Alejandro B. Kolton},
  journal={Physical Review Research},
  year={2019}
}

• G. Rumi, Jazmín Aragón Sánchez, +7 authors A. Kolton
• Published 30 June 2019
• Physics
• Physical Review Research

A many-particle system must posses long-range interactions in order to be hyperuniform at thermal equilibrium. Hydrodynamic arguments and numerical simulations show, nevertheless, that a three-dimensional elastic-line array with short-ranged repulsive interactions, such as vortex matter in a type-II superconductor, forms at equilibrium a class-II hyperuniform two-dimensional point pattern for any constant-$z$ cross section. In this case, density fluctuations vanish isotropically as $\sim q^{\alpha}$ at small wave-vectors $q$, with $\alpha=1$. This prediction includes the solid and liquid vortex phases in the ideal clean case, and the liquid in presence of weak uncorrelated disorder. We also show that the three-dimensional Bragg glass phase is marginally hyperuniform, while the Bose glass and the liquid phase with correlated disorder are expected to be non-hyperuniform at equilibrium. Furthermore, we compare these predictions with experimental results on the large-wavelength vortex density fluctuations of magnetically decorated vortex structures nucleated in pristine, electron-irradiated and heavy-ion irradiated superconducting BiSCCO samples in the mixed state. For most cases we find hyperuniform two-dimensional point patterns at the superconductor surface with an effective exponent $\alpha_{\text{eff}} \approx 1$. We interpret these results in terms of a large-scale memory of the high-temperature line-liquid phase retained in the glassy dynamics when field-cooling the vortex structures into the solid phase. We also discuss the crossovers expected from the dispersivity of the elastic constants at intermediate length-scales, and the lack of hyperuniformity in the $x\,-y$ plane for lengths $q^{-1}$ larger than the sample thickness due to finite-size effects in the $z$-direction.