Below , a small perpendicular field produces canting of the two ordered sublattices. In the isotropic two-sublattice mean-field model, the induced component is : the reduced ordered moment at higher temperature tilts more easily and the two effects cancel. Thus remains constant until the transition.
A field parallel to the maintained ordering axis instead increases the magnitude of one sublattice magnetization and decreases the other. At zero temperature saturated localized spins have essentially no such amplitude response in this model, so . Thermal population changes make it easier to redistribute the longitudinal moments as temperature rises, giving the growing longitudinal susceptibility that meets at . These directions presume the domain or a weak anisotropy fixes the ordered axis; in a perfectly isotropic freely rotating sample the Néel vector can reorient.
Above there is no chosen magnetic axis, so the response is isotropic. Antiferromagnetic correlations oppose uniform magnetization, giving the mean-field Curie–Weiss form
At it equals , consistent with the transverse branch; at large temperature it decreases as . A negative Weiss temperature characterizes this uniform antiferromagnetic response, rather than a ferromagnetic divergence at positive . The illustrative mean-field curves in solution make these limits visible.
For an ideal long specimen with negligible demagnetizing field, the Meissner state has , so . A type-I superconductor retains this response up to its thermodynamic critical field and then enters the normal state, where the small normal magnetic response can be neglected. Nonzero demagnetizing fields can create an intermediate state and broaden the measured transition.
A type-II superconductor is fully screening only below . Between and , magnetic flux enters as quantized vortices and the reversible magnetization remains diamagnetic but decreases in magnitude towards zero at . Above the bulk is normal. Ginzburg–Landau theory distinguishes the types at , not at ; the later condition in the source merely restricts its estimate.
The – sketch has two increasing-width regions below : Meissner below the lower boundary, mixed vortex state between the two boundaries, and normal state above the upper boundary. Both critical fields vanish at . The phase-diagram panel of the original figure in solution shows this topology; its normalized field curves are illustrative, not a fit to the source magnetization loop.
The displayed horizontal variable is in tesla. The source formulas written with a flux quantum actually have the dimensions of magnetic flux density, so define and when applying them:
From the onset of curvature away from the low-field line in panel A, is roughly with uncertainty of order . Panel B's branches approach the normal background over approximately –; use as a coarse central estimate. Resolving irreversible loop closure from the true thermodynamic upper field, and correcting demagnetization, would require better data and geometry. These readings support scales, not precise material constants.
The upper field gives
The leading-log critical-field inversion starts by dividing the two field formulas to eliminate :
The large- solution is , hence
The penetration-depth range is an indicative graph/model scale, not a propagated confidence interval. There is a mathematical ambiguity worth making explicit: rises from zero at one, peaks at , then falls. The same central ratio also gives and , so the printed restriction alone does not select a unique solution. The leading-log lower-field formula is intended for appreciably large , which motivates the branch; near one it needs the omitted core-energy correction. Even the larger-branch estimate has systematic uncertainty from that approximation.
is the London penetration depth, the magnetic screening scale, while is the superconducting coherence length, the recovery scale of the superconducting order parameter after spatial suppression. In the mixed state the complex order parameter vanishes in vortex cores of radius of order , recovers between separated cores and winds in phase by around each singly quantized vortex. Currents and magnetic field spread over scale ; vortex density grows with the mean internal field according to . Near cores overlap and the order-parameter amplitude becomes small throughout the sample. A schematic core profile appears in solution.
The hysteresis is not the reversible equilibrium magnetization: defects pin vortices, so entry and exit leave different spatial flux distributions. Macroscopic currents oppose changes in flux, trapped vortices give remanence, and depinning and creep depend on history and temperature. Surface barriers can also contribute. The loop width probes an irreversible current scale, but its conversion to current density additionally needs sample geometry and an appropriate critical-state model.