  The energy of a type II superconductor placed in a strong non-uniform, smooth
and signed magnetic field is displayed via a universal characteristic function
defined by means of a simplified two dimensional Ginzburg-Landau functional. We
study the asymptotic behavior of this functional in a specific asymptotic
regime, thereby linking it to a one dimensional functional, using methods
developed by Almog-Helffer and Fournais-Helffer devoted to the analysis of
surface superconductivity in the presence of a uniform magnetic field. As a
result, we obtain an asymptotic formula reminiscent of the one for the surface
superconductivity regime, where the zero set of the magnetic field plays the
role of the superconductor's surface.
