Giant vortices in small mesoscopic disks: an approximate description

Abstract

We present an approximate description of the giant vortex state in a thin mesoscopic superconducting disk within the phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau approach. Analytical asymptotic expressions for the energies of the states with fixed vorticity are obtained when a small magnetic flux is accumulated in the disk. The spectrum of the lowest Landau levels of such a disk is also discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures (presented at the Second European Conference in School Format on Vortex Matter in Superconductors, Crete, Greece, September 15-25, 2001; to be published in Physica C