Vortex states in axially symmetric superconductors in applied magnetic field (Q446041)

This paper obtains exact analytical solutions for the linear Ginzburg-Landau (LGL) equation of a cylindrical superconducting sample with size comparable to the magnetic field penetration depth. Due to that, the contribution to the Gibbs free energy caused by the deformation of the magnetic field around the sample can be neglected. The superconducting order parameter (the wave function) is a complex function defined only inside the sample, as it describes the Cooper-pair density. First, the GL equation is given following from the minimization of energy with respect to the order parameter. The LGL equation is obtained then by neglecting the nonlinear term and represented in linear operator form. By using cylindrical coordinates, the separation of the circular coordinate reduces the problem to a 2D one. It is shown, that the range of the eigenvalues of the problem is determined by mapping the LGL into a Sturm-Liouville problem and its values are determined by the boundary conditions. The authors obtain exact analytical expression for the eigenfunctions for boundaries of solid or hollow cylindrical surfaces in terms of finite sums of Whittaker functions. The fundamental set of solutions is expressed in terms of linear combinations of Kummer and Tricomi confluent hypergeometric functions. Because the superconducting state develops when the mean value of the Landau operator becomes negative, the eigenvalue is demanded to be non-positive. The boundary conditions stated for the superconducting current and the smooth behavior of the order parameter are reduced to a mixed Dirichlet-Neumann condition on cylindrical surfaces of the samples. The structure of spectrum is analyzed in various cases depending on the relative size of the cylindrical surfaces and cylindrical cavities; in particular, the typical cases of a solid cylinder, a thin shell and a narrow cavity are studied. In order to find solutions for the non-linear GL equation with the aim to construct vortex states, the nonlinear free energy of the cylindrical superconducting sample in the space generated by the eigenfunctions of the linear associated problem is minimized numerically. The free energy functional does not take into account the feed-back change of the external magnetic field, and surface effects. As a numerical result, the phase diagram of the free energy versus the magnetic field for the giant- and multi-vortex states for a solid cylinder is presented. Moreover, the distribution of the absolute value and the complex phase (the argument) of the order parameter in a cross-section of a solid and hollow cylinder are also calculated and presented in density plots.