Vortex States and Phase Diagram of Multi-component Superconductors with Competing Repulsive and Attractive Vortex Interactions

Abstract: We investigate the behavior of vortices of multi-component superconductivity, realized in $\rm{MgB_2}$ and Fe-based superconductors, within the framework of Ginzburg-Landau (GL) theory in terms of numerical calculations of the time-dependent GL equations and the variational method. It is revealed that close to the critical point of the composite system the inter-component coupling makes the system behave as a single component superconductivity in most cases. However, when the bare mean-field critical points of the two components coincide with each other, and furthermore the inter-band coupling disappears at the same temperature, interesting phenomena occur as follows. Vortices interact attractively at large separation and repulsively at short distance in certain parameter space. Because of the non-monotonic interaction profile, phase separations between vortex clusters of triangular order and the Meissner state take place, which indicates a first-order phase transition associated with the penetration of the magnetic field into a superconductor sample. Phase diagrams of vortex states are then constructed with the associated magnetization curve. It is found that all these behavior interpolates the features of the type I and II superconductors.