Dynamics of driven vortices in type-II superconductors in the presence of strong point or columnar pinning centers*

We investigate the nonequilibrium steady state of driven magnetic flux lines in type-II superconductors subject to strong point or columnar pinning centers. We employ a three-dimensional elastic line model and Metropolis Monte Carlo simulations. We characterize the system by means of the force-velocity / current-voltage curve, static structure factor, mean vortex gyration radius, number of double-kink and half-loop excitations, and velocity / voltage noise features. We use different annealing methods to minimize numerical artifacts originating from long-lived metastable states. We compare the results for the above quantities for randomly distributed point and columnar defects.