Pancake vortices lying on stacks of Josephson vortices (JVs) become displaced due to interactions with the JV supercurrents.

 

 

Although this costs the stack tilt energy it results in a net reduction of energy, and leads to an attractive interaction between JVs and PVs.

 

        A.E.Koshelev, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 187 (1999).