Out-Of-Plane Transverse Resistivity in High-T-C Superconductors as a Signature of Flow of Rigid Vortex Lines

Abstract

When the transport current is applied parallel to the CuO2 layers, say, along the a axis, of a high-T-c superconductor, and the magnetic field B is in a direction which makes a polar angle theta with the c axis and an azimuthal angle phi with the ac plane, for the case of rigid flux lines, in addition to the usual longitudinal resistivity rho(perpendicular to), there should also exist an out-of-plane transverse resistivity rho(perpendicular to), which is of the same order of magnitude as rho(perpendicular to) and satisfies the relation rho(perpendicular to)/rho(parallel to) =tan theta cos phi in the high anisotropy limit and for theta being not very close to pi/2. For less rigid flux lines, reduction in rho(perpendicular to)rho(parallel to) from this prediction should be observed, and for a set of decoupled pancake vortices, rho(perpendicular to) should vanish entirely.