Effect of fluctuations on the NMR relaxation beyond the Abrikosov vortex state

The effect of fluctuations on the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxation rate, $W$, is studied in a complete phase diagram of a 2D superconductor above the upper critical field line $H_{c2}(T)$ . In the region of relatively high temperatures and low magnetic fields, the relaxation rate $W$ is determined by two competing effects. The first one is its decrease in result of suppression of quasi-particle density of states (DOS) due to formation of fluctuation Cooper pairs (FCP). The second one is a specific, purely quantum, relaxation process of the Maki-Thompson (MT) type, which for low field leads to an increase of the relaxation rate. The latter describes particular fluctuation processes involving self-pairing of a single electron on self-intersecting trajectories of a size up to phase-breaking length $l_{\phi }$ which becomes possible due to an electron spin-flip scattering event at a nucleus. As a result, different scenarios with either growth or decrease of the NMR relaxation rate are possible upon approaching the normal metal - type-II superconductor transition. The character of fluctuations changes along the line $H_{c2}$ from the thermal long-wavelength type in weak magnetic fields to the clusters of rotating FCP in fields comparable to $H_{c2}$. We find that below the well-defined temperature $T^*_0\approx 0.6T_{c0}$, the MT process becomes ineffective even in absence of intrinsic pair-breaking. The small scale of FCP rotations ($\xi_{xy}$) in so high fields impedes formation of long (
Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures