Eur. Phys. J. B 25, 313-317 (2002)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e20020036

Transition to plastic motion as a critical phenomenon and anomalous interface layer of a 2D driven vortex lattice

Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, CNRS Université Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France

Corresponding author: ^a fruchter@lps.u-psud.fr

Received: 22 September 2001
Published online: 15 February 2002

Abstract

The dynamic transition between ordered flow and plastic flow is studied for a two-dimensional driven vortex lattice, in the presence of sharp and dense pinning centers, from numerical simulations. For this system, which does not show smectic ordering, the lattice exhibits a first order transition from a crystal to a liquid, shortly followed by the dynamical transition to plastic flow. The resistivity provides a critical order parameter for the latter, and critical exponents are determined in analogy with a percolation transition. At the boundary between a pinned region and an unpinned one, an anomalous layer is observed, where the vortices are more strongly pinned than in the bulk.