EVAPORATION OF A SINGLE VORTEX LINE IN A WEAKLY COUPLED MULTILAYERED SUPERCONDUCTOR

A single Abrikosov line is considered in a field perpendicular to the layers in superconductors with Josephson coupling of the layers. It is shown that the vortex line evaporates above some critical temperature T* in compounds with perpendicular superconducting correlation length xi-z(0) << d/k where k is the Ginzburg parameter and d is the interlayer distance. In a system with identical layers, T* coincides with the critical temperature of the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition.