Dynamical interactions of cosmic strings and flux vortices in superconductors

Abstract We perform a numerical simulation of the dynamical interactions of vortex excitations in the abelian Higgs model. These structures can be interpreted as cross sections of cosmic strings or of magnetic flux tubes trapped in a superconductor. Although at a critical value of the coupling constant the interaction energy between static vortices vanishes, colliding vortices interact nontrivially by scattering at 90° in a head-on collision, and are therefore not solitons. We also observe 90° scattering at non-critical values of the coupling constant.