Freezing transition of the vortex liquid in a layered superconductor

Abstract

The self-consistent theory of Singwi, Tosi, Land, and Sjolander is used to describe the liquid-solid phase in a layered superconductor in the limit of weak interplane correlation effects as would be applicable to BSCCO materials. We calculate the local-field corrections, static structure factor, and pair correlation function and compare our results with other methods. The Hansen-Verlet criterion is used to estimate the freezing temperature of the vortex system.