Unzipping flux lines from extended defects in type-II superconductors

Abstract

With magnetic force microscopy in mind, we study the unbinding transition of individual flux lines from extended defects like columnar pins and twin planes in type II superconductors. In the presence of point disorder, the transition is universal with an exponent which depends only on the dimensionality of the extended defect. We also consider the unbinding transition of a single vortex line from a twin plane occupied by other vortices. We show that the critical properties of this transition depend strongly on the Luttinger liquid parameter which describes the long distance physics of the two-dimensional flux line array.