Determining the vortex tilt relative to a superconductor surface

Abstract

It is of interest to determine the exit angle of a vortex from a superconductor surface, since this affects the intervortex interactions and their consequences. Two ways to determine this angle are to image the vortex magnetic fields above the surface, or the vortex core shape at the surface. In this work we evaluate the field $\mathbit{h}(x,y,z)$ above a flat superconducting surface $x,y$ and the currents $\mathbit{J}(x,y)$ at that surface for a straight vortex tilted relative to the normal to the surface, for both the isotropic and anisotropic cases. In principle, these results can be used to determine the vortex exit tilt angle from analyses of magnetic field imaging or density of states data.