Dendritic instability of the magnetic flux in thermally anisotropic type-II superconductors

The thermomagnetic instability of the Bean critical state in a layered type-II superconducting slab subjected to an external magnetic field increasing with constant rate is studied theoretically. It is shown that the strong anisotropy of thermal conductivity significantly affects the instability onset. By applying a linear analysis of Maxwell and thermal diffusion equations, the criteria for the nonuniform instability, the characteristic size of the flux pattern, and the stability-instability coexistence line were obtained.