The Vortex State

One of the most spectacular consequences of the description of the superfluid condensate in superfluid He or in superconductors as a single macroscopic quantum state is the quantization of circulation, resulting in quantized vortex lines. This book draws no distinction between superfluid He3 and He4 and superconductors. The reader will find the essential introductory chapters and the most recent theoretical and experimental progress in our understanding of the vortex state in both superconductors and superfluids, from lectures given by leading experts in the field, both experimentalists and theoreticians, who gathered in Cargèse for a NATO ASI. The peculiar features related to short coherence lengths, 2D geometry, high temperatures, disorder, and pinning are thoroughly discussed.

An introduction to superfluidity and vortices in superfluid 4Helium.- Anisotropic superconductors: fundamentals of vortices in layered superconductors.- Pinning, fluctuations and melting of superconducting vortex arrays.- Two-dimensional superfluids.- Short coherence length superconductors.- Magnetic decoration studies of flux line lattices in the cuprate superconductors.- Flux creep and ac measurements in superconductors.- Pinning and dynamics of magnetic vortices.- Pinning and correlations in the vortex phase.- Vortex dynamics in superfluids and superconductors.- Experimental observation of the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition.- Fermi liquid theory of non-S-wave superconductivity.- Flux motion by quantum tunneling.- Layered superconductors: do vortices interact with the crystal lattice?.- Vortex state and dimensionality.- Enhancement of superconductivity by photoexcitation.- Surface ESR probing of superconductors.