Travelling waves in a drifting flux lattice

Abstract

Starting from the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau (TDGL) equations for a type II superconductor, we derive the equations of motion for the displacement field of a moving vortex lattice ignoring pinning and inertia. We show that it is linearly stable and, surprisingly, that it supports wavelike long-wavelength excitations arising not from inertia or elasticity but from the strain-dependent mobility of the moving lattice. It should be possible to image these waves, whose speeds are a few μm/s, using fast scanning tunneling microscopy.