Monte Carlo Studies of the Two-Dimensional Vortex Liquid: Absence of Transition and Dynamical Properties

Abstract

Monte Carlo simulations are performed to study the properties of type-II superconducting films in a magnetic field in which the vortices move in the two-dimensional geometry represented by the surface of a sphere. No numerical evidence is found for any melting transition, although the correlation length over which vortex crystalline order exists grows as the temperature is reduced. At low temperatures, the relaxation timescales are of an Arrhenius form which can be associated with the creation of dislocations of a size comparable to the correlation length.