Virgin magnetization of a magnetically shielded superconductor wire: Theory and experiment

On the basis of exact solutions to the London equation, the magnetic moment of a type II superconductor filament surrounded by a soft-magnet environment is calculated and the procedure of extracting the superconductor contribution from magnetic measurements is suggested. A comparison of theoretical results with experiments on MgB2/Fe wires allows the estimation of the value of critical current for the first magnetic flux penetration.