Patterned geometries and hydrodynamics at the vortex Bose glass transition

Abstract

Patterned irradiation of cuprate superconductors with columnar defects allows a new generation of experiments that can probe the properties of vortex liquids by confining them to controlled geometries. Here we show that an analysis of such experiments that combines an inhomogeneous Bose glass scaling theory with the hydrodynamic description of viscous flow of vortex liquids can be used to infer the critical behavior near the Bose glass transition. The shear viscosity is predicted to diverge as $|T\ensuremath{-}{T}_{\mathrm{BG}}{|}^{\ensuremath{-}z}$ at the Bose glass transition, with $z\ensuremath{\simeq}4.6$ the dynamical critical exponent.