Low-Field Phase Diagram of Layered Superconductors: The Role of Electromagnetic Coupling
Gianni Blatter, Vadim Geshkenbein, Anatoli Larkin, Henrik Nordborg
Abstract
We determine the position and shape of the melting line in a layered superconductor taking the electromagnetic coupling between layers into account. In the limit of vanishing Josephson coupling we obtain a new generic reentrant low-field melting line. Finite Josephson coupling pushes the melting line to higher temperatures and fields and a new line shape
B
m
∝(1−T/
T
c
)
3/2
is found. We construct the low-field phase diagram including melting and decoupling lines and discuss various experiments in the light of our new results.