Glass transition in vortex matter

Abstract

We develop a unifying approach bridging between the spin and vortex glasses, based, on one hand, on the application of the replica method to Ginzburg-Landau description of the system in terms of the superconductor order parameter near Tc and, on the other hand, on the notion of the extreme value statistics that govern the distribution of the energy barriers controlling the glassy slow dynamics of the vortices. Focusing on the vortex systems not very far from the upper critical field we demonstrate that the glassy behavior is associated with the continuous replica symmetry breaking, which is the inherent feature of the long range spin glasses. We apply our results to the description of vortex phase diagram and find the vortex glass transition line, which appears different and well separated from both the melting line and from the so-called second peak lines.