Abstract
Vortex cutting and reconnection is an intriguing and still-unsolved problem central to many areas of classical and quantum physics, including hydrodynamics, astrophysics, and superconductivity. Here, we describe a comprehensive investigation of the crossing of magnetic vortices in superconductors using time dependent Ginsburg-Landau modeling. Within a macroscopic volume, we simulate initial magnetization of an anisotropic high temperature superconductor followed by subsequent remagnetization with perpendicular magnetic fields, creating the crossing of the initial and newly generated vortices. The time resolved evolution of vortex lines as they approach each other, contort, locally conjoin, and detach, elucidates the fine details of the vortex-crossing scenario under practical situations with many interacting vortices in the presence of weak pinning. Our simulations also reveal left-handed helical vortex instabilities that accompany the remagnetization process and participate in the vortex crossing events.
Highlights
Magnetic field lines introduced by Michael Faraday nearly two centuries ago are a very useful abstraction that represents the behavior of magnetic fields [1]
In a type-II superconductor below the superconducting transition temperature, the magnetic field enters in the shape of separate flux lines - real material elastic strings -Abrikosov vortices comprised of supercurrents circulating around a normal core that can carry one or more magnetic flux quanta (Φ0=h/2e) [2,3,4]
We present time dependent Ginzburg-Landau simulations of arrays of vortices in a finite-sized sample that is initially magnetized in one direction and remagnetized with an orthogonal magnetic field
Summary
Magnetic field lines introduced by Michael Faraday nearly two centuries ago are a very useful abstraction that represents the behavior of magnetic fields [1]. Unlike Faraday’s abstract magnetic field lines, vortices in a superconductor can cross, cut, and reconnect or entangle with each other in complex dynamic processes that currently lack a clear theoretical description. After cutting, reconnecting and straightening, the new vortices tilt towards the applied field direction, resulting in the rotation of the magnetic flux inside the superconductor.
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