4,865 research outputs found
Plasticity in current-driven vortex lattices
We present a theoretical analysis of recent experiments on current-driven
vortex dynamics in the Corbino disk geometry. This geometry introduces
controlled spatial gradients in the driving force and allows the study of the
onset of plasticity and tearing in clean vortex lattices. We describe plastic
slip in terms of the stress-driven unbinding of dislocation pairs, which in
turn contribute to the relaxation of the shear, yielding a nonlinear response.
The steady state density of free dislocations induced by the applied stress is
calculated as a function of the applied current and temperature. A criterion
for the onset of plasticity at a radial location in the disk yields a
temperature-dependent critical current that is in qualitative agreement with
experiments.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure
Translational Correlations in the Vortex Array at the Surface of a Type-II Superconductor
We discuss the statistical mechanics of magnetic flux lines in a
finite-thickness slab of type-II superconductor. The long wavelength properties
of a flux-line liquid in a slab geometry are described by a hydrodynamic free
energy that incorporates the boundary conditions on the flux lines at the
sample's surface as a surface contribution to the free energy. Bulk and surface
weak disorder are modeled via Gaussian impurity potentials. This free energy is
used to evaluate the two-dimensional structure factor of the flux-line tips at
the sample surface. We find that surface interaction always dominates in
determining the decay of translational correlations in the asymptotic
long-wavelength limit. On the other hand, such large length scales have not
been probed by the decoration experiments. Our results indicate that the
translational correlations extracted from the analysis of the Bitter patterns
are indeed representative of behavior of flux lines in the bulk.Comment: 23 pages, 1 figure (not included), harvmac.tex macro needed (e-mail
requests to [email protected] SU-CM-92-01
Models of plastic depinning of driven disordered systems
Two classes of models of driven disordered systems that exhibit
history-dependent dynamics are discussed. The first class incorporates local
inertia in the dynamics via nonmonotonic stress transfer between adjacent
degrees of freedom. The second class allows for proliferation of topological
defects due to the interplay of strong disorder and drive. In mean field theory
both models exhibit a tricritical point as a function of disorder strength. At
weak disorder depinning is continuous and the sliding state is unique. At
strong disorder depinning is discontinuous and hysteretic.Comment: 3 figures, invited talk at StatPhys 2
Patterned Geometries and Hydrodynamics at the Vortex Bose Glass Transition
Patterned irradiation of cuprate superconductors with columnar defects allows
a new generation of experiments which can probe the properties of vortex
liquids by confining them to controlled geometries. Here we show that an
analysis of such experiments that combines an inhomogeneous Bose glass scaling
theory with the hydrodynamic description of viscous flow of vortex liquids can
be used to infer the critical behavior near the Bose glass transition. The
shear viscosity is predicted to diverge as at the Bose glass
transition, with the dynamical critical exponent.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Kinetic Theory of Flux Line Hydrodynamics:LIQUID Phase with Disorder
We study the Langevin dynamics of flux lines of high--T superconductors
in the presence of random quenched pinning. The hydrodynamic theory for the
densities is derived by starting with the microscopic model for the flux-line
liquid. The dynamic functional is expressed as an expansion in the dynamic
order parameter and the corresponding response field. We treat the model within
the Gaussian approximation and calculate the dynamic structure function in the
presence of pinning disorder. The disorder leads to an additive static peak
proportional to the disorder strength. On length scales larger than the line
static transverse wandering length and at long times, we recover the
hydrodynamic results of simple frictional diffusion, with interactions
additively renormalizing the relaxational rate. On shorter length and time
scales line internal degrees of freedom significantly modify the dynamics by
generating wavevector-dependent corrections to the density relaxation rate.Comment: 61 pages and 6 figures available upon request, plain TEX using
Harvard macro
Substrate rigidity deforms and polarizes active gels
We present a continuum model of the coupling between cells and substrate that
accounts for some of the observed substrate-stiffness dependence of cell
properties. The cell is modeled as an elastic active gel, adapting recently
developed continuum theories of active viscoelastic fluids. The coupling to the
substrate enters as a boundary condition that relates the cell's deformation
field to local stress gradients. In the presence of activity, the coupling to
the substrate yields spatially inhomogeneous contractile stresses and
deformations in the cell and can enhance polarization, breaking the cell's
front-rear symmetry.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, EPL forma
Localization transitions in non-Hermitian quantum mechanics
We study the localization transitions which arise in both one and two
dimensions when quantum mechanical particles described by a random
Schr\"odinger equation are subjected to a constant imaginary vector potential.
A path-integral formulation relates the transition to flux lines depinned from
columnar defects by a transverse magnetic field in superconductors. The theory
predicts that the transverse Meissner effect is accompanied by stretched
exponential relaxation of the field into the bulk and a diverging penetration
depth at the transition.Comment: 4 pages (latex) with 3 figures (epsf) embedded in the text using the
style file epsf.st
Driven depinning of strongly disordered media and anisotropic mean-field limits
Extended systems driven through strong disorder are modeled generically using
coarse-grained degrees of freedom that interact elastically in the directions
parallel to the driving force and that slip along at least one of the
directions transverse to the motion. A realization of such a model is a
collection of elastic channels with transverse viscous couplings. In the
infinite range limit this model has a tricritical point separating a region
where the depinning is continuous, in the universality class of elastic
depinning, from a region where depinning is hysteretic. Many of the collective
transport models discussed in the literature are special cases of the generic
model.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Mode-coupling theory of the stress-tensor autocorrelation function of a dense binary fluid mixture
We present a generalized mode-coupling theory for a dense binary fluid
mixture. The theory is used to calculate molecular-scale renormalizations to
the stress-tensor autocorrelation function (STAF) and to the long-wavelength
zero-frequency shear viscosity. As in the case of a dense simple fluid, we find
that the STAF appears to decay as over an intermediate range of
time. The coefficient of this long-time tail is more than two orders of
magnitude larger than that obtained from conventional mode-coupling theory. Our
study focuses on the effect of compositional disorder on the decay of the STAF
in a dense mixture.Comment: Published; withdrawn since ordering in the archive gives misleading
impression of new publicatio
Nonlinear Hydrodynamics of Disentangled Flux-Line Liquids
In this paper we use non-Gaussian hydrodynamics to study the magnetic
response of a flux-line liquid in the mixed state of a type-II superconductor.
Both the derivation of our model, which goes beyond conventional Gaussian flux
liquid hydrodynamics, and its relationship to other approaches used in the
literature are discussed. We focus on the response to a transverse tilting
field which is controlled by the tilt modulus, c44, of the flux array. We show
that interaction effects can enhance c44 even in infinitely thick clean
materials. This enhancement can be interpreted as the appearance of a
disentangled flux-liquid fraction. In contrast to earlier work, our theory
incorporates the nonlocality of the intervortex interaction in the field
direction. This nonlocality is crucial for obtaining a nonvanishing
renormalization of the tilt modulus in the thermodynamic limit of thick
samples.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures (submitted to PRB
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