Suppression of the Melting Line in a Weakly Disordered Flux-line System

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An analytic formula describing the suppression of the equilibrium melting line by quenched point pinning disorder is compared to data from ac susceptibility and magnetization measurements in the mixed phase of the layered dichalcogenide low Tc superconductor 2H-NbSe₂. This material exhibits a sharp peak effect in the critical current close to the upper critical field Hc2(T). Arguing that the disorder-suppressed melting line in this system is to be identified with the locus of peak positions of the critical current as magnetic field and temperature are varied, we demonstrate that this formula provides a remarkably accurate fit to the experimental data over three orders of magnitude in magnetic field.