G. Blatter et V. Geshkenbein, VAN-DER-WAALS ATTRACTION OF VORTICES IN ANISOTROPIC AND LAYERED SUPERCONDUCTORS, Physical review letters, 77(24), 1996, pp. 4958-4961
We show that in anisotropic and layered superconductors the fluctuatio
ns of vortex lines produce an attractive long-range vortex-vortex inte
raction of the van der Waals type. This attraction follows from the an
isotropic screening properties of the material and has profound conseq
uences for the low-field phase diagram of these materials.