Eur. Phys. J. B 42, 3-10 (2004)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2004-00352-1

Critical vortex line length near a zigzag of pinning centers

Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, C. P. 68528 CEP 21941-972, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

Corresponding authors: ^a ton@if.ufrj.br - ^b mmd@if.ufrj.br

Received: 14 April 2004
Revised: 23 July 2004
Published online: 26 November 2004

Abstract

A vortex line passes through as many pinning centers as possible on its way from one extremety of the superconductor to the other at the expense of increasing its self-energy. In the framework of the Ginzburg-Landau theory we study the relative growth in length, with respect to the straight line, of a vortex near a zigzag of defects. The defects are insulating pinning spheres that form a three-dimensional cubic array embedded in the superconductor. We determine the depinning transition beyond which the vortex line no longer follows the critical zigzag path of defects.