Proposed thermodynamic method to determine the vortex mass in layered superconductors

We describe a simple method to study vortex dynamics that can determine or set an upper limit on the vortex mass. The specific heat of the vortex lattice in layered superconductors has a classical limit of 1 kB per pancake vortex if the vortex mass is zero. If the vortex mass mv is finite, a new Einstein branch of normal modes will appear with a crossover temperature ΘE ∝ mv−1, and the specific heat will saturate at a new classical limit of 2 kB per pancake vortex.