FLUCTUATION BROADENING OF THE PLASMA RESONANCE LINE IN THE VORTEX LIQUID STATE OF LAYERED SUPERCONDUCTORS

The Josephson plasma resonance (JPR) provides a sensitive probe of vortex states in layered superconductors. We demonstrate that in the case of weak damping in the liquid phase, broadening of the JPR line is caused mainly by random Josephson coupling arising from the density fluctuations of pancake vortices. In this case the JPR line has the universal shape, which is determined only by parameters of the superconductors and temperature. This mechanism gives a natural explanation for the experimentally observed asymmetric lineshape. The tail at high frequencies arises due to mixing of the propagating plasma modes by random Josephson coupling, while the tail at small frequencies is caused by the localized plasma modes originating from a rare fluctuation suppression of the Josephson coupling in large areas. {copyright} {ital 1999} {ital The American Physical Society}