Variational theory of flux-line liquids

Abstract

We formulate a variational (Hartree like) description of flux line liquids which improves on the theory we developed in an earlier paper [A.M. Ettouhami, Phys. Rev. B 65, 134504 (2002)]. We derive, in particular, how the massive term confining the fluctuations of flux lines varies with temperature and show that this term vanishes at high enough temperatures where the vortices behave as freely fluctuating elastic lines.