Observation of well-ordered metastable vortex lattice phases in superconducting MgB ₂ using small-angle neutron scattering

The vortex lattice (VL) symmetry and orientation in clean type-II superconductors depends sensitively on the host material anisotropy, vortex density and temperature, frequently leading to rich phase diagrams. Typically, a well-ordered VL is taken to imply a ground-state configuration for the vortex-vortex interaction. Using neutron scattering we studied the VL in MgB ₂ for a number of field-temperature histories, discovering an unprecedented degree of metastability in connection with a known, second-order rotation transition. This allows, for the first time, structural studies of a well-ordered, nonequilibrium VL. While the mechanism responsible for the longevity of the metastable states is not resolved, we speculate it is due to a jamming of VL domains, preventing a rotation to the ground-state orientation.