Self-organized criticality induced by quenched disorder: experiments on flux avalanches in NbH${}_x$ films

Abstract

We present an experimental study of the influence of quenched disorder on the distribution of flux avalanches in type-II superconductors. In the presence of much quenched disorder, the avalanche sizes are power-law distributed and show finite size scaling, as expected from self-organized criticality (SOC). Furthermore, the shape of the avalanches is observed to be fractal. In the absence of quenched disorder, a preferred size of avalanches is observed and avalanches are smooth. These observations indicate that a certain minimum amount of disorder is necessary for SOC behavior. We relate these findings to the appearance or non-appearance of SOC in other experimental systems, particularly piles of sand.

arXiv comment4 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (11)

• Avalanche Dynamics in Evolution, Growth, and Depinning Models
• Paths to Self-Organized Criticality
• How self-organized criticality works: A unified mean-field picture
• Self-organized criticality as an absorbing-state phase transition
• Order Parameter and Scaling Fields in Self-Organized Criticality
• Superconducting vortex avalanches, voltage bursts, and vortex plastic flow: Effect of the microscopic pinning landscape on the macroscopic properties
• Avalanche dynamics, surface roughening and self-organized criticality - experiments on a 3 dimensional pile of rice
• Vortex avalanches and self organized criticality in superconducting niobium
• Internal avalanches in a pile of superconducting vortices
• Quenched noise and over-active sites in sandpile dynamics
• The Oslo rice pile model is a quenched Edwards-Wilkinson equation

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Avalanche Spatial Structure and Multivariable Scaling Functions; Sizes, Heights, Widths, and Views through Windows
• Direct observation of stress accumulation and relaxation in small bundles of superconducting vortices in tungsten thin-films
• Scaling Behavior of Quasi-One-Dimensional Vortex Avalanches in Superconducting Films