Avalanches and Self-Organized Criticality in Superconductors
Statistical Mechanics
2009-11-11 v1 Superconductivity
Abstract
We review the use of superconductors as a playground for the experimental study of front roughening and avalanches. Using the magneto-optical technique, the spatial distribution of the vortex density in the sample is monitored as a function of time. The roughness and growth exponents corresponding to the vortex landscape are determined and compared to the exponents that characterize the avalanches in the framework of Self-Organized Criticality. For those situations where a thermo-magnetic instability arises, an analytical non-linear and non-local model is discussed, which is found to be consistent to great detail with the experimental results. On anisotropic substrates, the anisotropy regularizes the avalanches.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0510500,
title = {Avalanches and Self-Organized Criticality in Superconductors},
author = {Rinke J. Wijngaarden and Marco S. Welling and Christof M. Aegerter and Mariela Menghini},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0510500},
year = {2009}
}