Gaussianity revisited: Exploring the Kibble-Zurek mechanism with superconducting rings

Abstract

In this paper we use spontaneous flux production in annular superconductors to shed light on the Kibble-Zurek scenario. In particular, we examine the effects of finite size and external fields, neither of which is directly amenable to the KZ analysis. Supported by 1D and 3D simulations, the properties of a superconducting ring are seen to be well represented by analytic Gaussian approximations which encode the KZ scales indirectly. Experimental results for annuli in the presence of external fields corroborate these findings.

20 pages, 10 figures; submitted to J. Phys: Condens. Matter for the special issue 'Condensed Matter Analogues of Cosmology'; v2: considerably reduced length, incorporation of experimental details into main text, discussion improved, references added, version accepted for publication

References in corpus (5)

• Spontaneous Fluxon Production in Annular Josephson Tunnel Junctions in the Presence of a Magnetic Field
• Self-field effects in window-type Josephson tunnel junctions
• Magnetic Sensors Based on Long Josephson Tunnel Junctions - An Alternative to SQUIDs
• Long Josephson Tunnel Junctions with Doubly Connected Electrodes
• Defect formation in superconducting rings: external fields and finite-size effects

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Spontaneous creation of Kibble-Zurek solitons in a Bose-Einstein condensate
• Global formation of topological defects in the multiferroic hexagonal manganites
• Asymmetric nanowire SQUID: linear CPR, stochastic switching, and symmetries
• Quench-induced spontaneous currents in rings of ultracold fermionic atoms
• 1/f Flux Noise in low-T${}_c$ SQUIDs due to Superparamagnetic Phase Transitions in Defect Clusters