We study a mesoscopic superconducting rod with a magnetic dot on its top having its moment oriented along the axis of symmetry. We study the dependence of the vortex pattern with the height and find that for very short and very long rods, the vortex pattern acquires a simple structure, consisting of giant and of multivortex states, respectively. In the long limit, the most stable configuration consists of two vortices, that reach the lateral surface of the rod diametrically opposed. The long rod shows reentrant behavior within some range of its radius and of the dot’s magnetic moment. Our results are obtained within the Ginzburg-Landau approach in the limit of no magnetic shielding.

• Received 14 July 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.81.104529