  We explore in detail the angular dependent vortex dynamics in type II
superconductors with aligned columnar defects introduced by irradiation with
very energetic heavy-ions. We use dc magnetization measurements deep in the
vortex solid phase, and ac susceptibility near the solid-liquid transition. We
show that aligned columnar defects are an excellent tool to test models for
vortex dynamics, particularly if they are tilted with respect to the
crystallographic axes, so their effects can be easily distinguished from those
arising from mass anisotropy, sample geometry, twin boundaries and intrinsic
pinning. This allows us, for instance, to use the uniaxial pinning of the
columnar defects as a probe to determine the orientation of the vortices inside
a bulk material, which in general is different from the orientation of the
applied fields. In some aspects we have found an excellent agreement with the
theoretical expectations of the Bose-glass model. The field dependence of the
lock-in angle follows remarkably well the 1/H prediction over the whole
temperature range of our measurements. In turn, the temperature dependence of
the lock-in angle gives strong support to the concept of an effective pinning
energy dominated by the entropic smearing effect. On the other hand, both our
ac and dc results show that columnar defects produce effective pinning over a
wide angular range, and that correlated pinning dominates the scenario for all
field orientations. One consequence of this is the existence of a rich variety
of vortex staircases.
