Josephson coupling and plasma resonance in vortex crystal

Abstract

We investigate the magnetic field dependence of the plasma resonance frequency in vortex crystal state. We find that low magnetic field induces a small correction to the plasma frequency proportional to the field. The slope of this linear field dependence is directly related to the average distance between the pancake vortices in the neighboring layers, the wandering length. This length is determined by both Josephson and magnetic couplings between layers. At higher fields the plasma frequency is suppressed collectively and is determined by elastic energy of the vortex lattice. Analyzing experimental data, we find that (i) the wandering length becomes comparable with the London penetration depth near T_{c}, (ii) at small melting fields (< 20G) the wandering length does not change noticeably at the melting transition demonstrating existence of the line liquid phase in this field range, and (iii) the self consistent theory of pancake fluctuations describes very well the field dependence of the Josephson plasma resonance frequency up to the melting point.