AC dynamic reorganization and critical phase transitions in superconducting vortex matter

Abstract

Vortex matter in type-II superconductors is a model complex system belonging to the vast ensemble of disordered elastic media. In all these systems, depinning occurs when an external drive is increased beyond a critical force. The nature of the depinning transition, the connection with a non-equilibrium phase transition, and its relation with proliferation or annealing of topological defects has been long and thoroughly studied. When driven by alternating forces these systems display particular characteristics, which are not a trivial extension of the corresponding DC regimes, and may be dynamically reorganized into different configurations. In fact, thermal history effects and dynamic reorganization are generally found in the vicinity of an order-disorder transition, whose fingerprint is the sudden rise of the effective pinning, known as Peak Effect, whose origin remained controversial for a while. In this review we reassess together a set of results presented during the last two decades, which allows building a comprehensive picture describing thermal and dynamic history effects in vortex matter, the oscillatory dynamics, the associated dynamic reorganization, and its connection with the AC depinning dynamic phase transition.