title: Surface melting of the vortex lattice.
abstract: We discuss the effect of an (ab) surface on the melting transition of the pancake-vortex lattice in a layered superconductor within a density functional theory approach. Both discontinuous and continuous surface melting are predicted for this system, although the latter scenario occupies the major part of the low-field phase diagram. The formation of a quasiliquid layer below the bulk melting temperature inhibits the appearance of a superheated solid phase, yielding an asymmetric hysteretic behavior which has been seen in experiments.
authors.affiliation: Theoretische Physik, ETH-Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: De Col
authors.forename: G I
authors.initials: GI
authors.lastname: Menon
authors.forename: V B
authors.initials: VB
authors.lastname: Geshkenbein
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Blatter