We experimentally address the importance of tuning in athermal phase transitions, which are triggered only by a slowly varying external field acting as tuning parameter. Using higher order statistics of fluctuations, a singular critical instability is detected for the first time in spite of an apparent universal self-similar kinetics over a broad range of driving force. The results as well as the experimental technique are likely to be of significance to many slowly driven non-equilibrium systems from geophysics to material science which display avalanche dynamics.
@article{arxiv.0811.0102,
title = {Criticality of tuning in athermal phase transitions},
author = {U. Chandni and Arindam Ghosh and H. S. Vijaya and S. Mohan},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0811.0102},
year = {2009}
}