“Soft” Anharmonic Vortex Glass in Ferromagnetic Superconductors

Abstract

Ferromagnetic order in superconductors can induce a spontaneous vortex (SV) state. For external field $\mathbf{H}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}0$, rotational symmetry guarantees a vanishing tilt modulus of the SV solid, leading to drastically different behavior than that of a conventional, external-field-induced vortex solid. We show that quenched disorder and anharmoinc effects lead to elastic moduli that are wave-vector dependent out to arbitrarily long length scales, and non-Hookean elasticity. The latter implies that for weak external fields $H$, the magnetic induction scales universally like $B(H)\ensuremath{\sim}B(0){+cH}^{\ensuremath{\alpha}}$, with $\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{\approx}0.72$. For weak disorder, we predict the SV solid is a topologically ordered glass, in the ``columnar elastic glass'' universality class.

Locations

• Physical Review Letters - View
• arXiv (Cornell University) - View - PDF
• DigitalCommons - CalPoly (California State Polytechnic University) - View - PDF
• DataCite API - View