Dm. Gaitonde et Tv. Ramakrishnan, INERTIAL MASS OF A VORTEX IN CUPRATE SUPERCONDUCTORS, Physical review. B, Condensed matter, 56(18), 1997, pp. 11951-11965
We present here a calculation of the inertial mass of a moving vortex
in cuprate superconductors. This is a poorly known basic quantity of o
bvious interest in vortex dynamics. The motion of a vortex causes a di
polar density distortion and an associated electric field which is scr
eened. The energy cost of the density distortion as well as the relate
d screened electric field contributes to the vortex mass, which is sma
ll because of efficient screening. As a preliminary, we present a disc
ussion and calculation of the vortex mass using a microscopically deri
vable phase-only action functional for the far region which shows that
the contribution from the far region is negligible and that most of i
t arises from the (small) core region of the vortex. A calculation bas
ed on a phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau functional is performed in th
e core region. Unfortunately such a calculation is unreliable; the rea
sons for it are discussed. A credible calculation of the vortex mass t
hus requires a fully microscopic non-coarse-grained theory. This is de
veloped, and results are presented for an s-wave BCS-like gap, with pa
rameters appropriate to the cuprates. The mass, about 0.5m(e) per laye
r, for a magnetic field along the c axis arises from deformation of qu
asiparticle states bound in the core and screening effects mentioned a
bove. We discuss earlier results, possible extensions to d-wave symmet
ry, and observability of effects dependent on the inertial mass. [S016
3-1829(97)05534-3].