Physical review. B, Condensed matter
Mapping a layered vortex gas
Stephen W. Pierson, Oriol T. Valls
Abstract
We discuss a general procedure to map a quasi-two-dimensional vortex gas to a layered sine-Gordon (SG) Hamiltonian. The latter is amenable to renormalization-group (RG) treatment by standard methods. The formalism is discussed in the context of recent work on the critical behavior of high-temperature superconductors at zero field. The method is illustrated with reference to the applicability of a layered SG model for which a RG analysis has been performed.