U.S.-Chile Cooperative Research: Onset of Superconductivity in Large Magnetic Fields

Indiana University, Bloomington IN

Investigators

Abstract

This US-Argentina proposal requests support for Dr. Peter Sternberg of Indiana University on Bloomington to collaborate with Drs. Manuel Del Pino and Patricio Felmer at the University of Chile in Santiago on the onset of superconductivity in large magnetic fields. This project is a continuation of an investigation of the nucleation of superconductivity in the presence of large applied magnetic fields. The Principal Investigators will use the Ginzburg-Landau energy as a model to focus on their goal of describing the behavior of the (non-zero) order parameter whose emergence signals the loss of stability of the so-called "normal state" once the temperature decreases beyond a critical value. They seek precise information about the critical temperature/magnetic field curve in order to provide a theory to support the many experimental efforts underway in recent years to capture this relationship. The project will describe states possessing vortex lattice structure (unbounded samples) and states localized about high-curvature sections of the sample boundary (bounded samples).