Non-Gaussian tail in the force distribution: a hallmark of correlated disorder in the host media of elastic objects

Inferring the nature of disorder in the media where elastic objects are nucleated is of crucial importance for many applications but remains a challenging basic-science problem. Here we propose a method to discern whether weak-point or strong-correlated disorder dominates based on characterizing the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2020-12, Vol.10
Main Authors: Sánchez, Jazmín Aragón, Rumi, Gonzalo, Maldonado, Raúl Cortés, Bolecek, Néstor René Cejas, Puig, Joaquín, Pedrazzini, Pablo, Nieva, Gladys, Dolz, Moira I., Konczykowski, Marcin, Beek, Cornelis J. van Der, Kolton, Alejandro B., Fasano, Yanina
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Condensed Matter
Physics
Superconductivity
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Inferring the nature of disorder in the media where elastic objects are nucleated is of crucial importance for many applications but remains a challenging basic-science problem. Here we propose a method to discern whether weak-point or strong-correlated disorder dominates based on characterizing the distribution of the interaction forces between objects mapped in large fields-of-view. We illustrate our proposal with the case-study system of vortex structures nucleated in type-II superconductors with different pinning landscapes. Interaction force distributions are computed from individual vortex positions imaged in thousands-vortices fields-of-view in a two-orders-of-magnitude-wide vortex-density range. Vortex structures nucleated in point-disordered media present Gaussian distributions of the interaction force components. In contrast, if the media have dilute and randomly-distributed correlated disorder, these distributions present non-Gaussian algebraically-decaying tails for large force magnitudes. We propose that detecting this deviation from the Gaussian behavior is a fingerprint of strong disorder, in our case originated from a dilute distribution of correlated pinning centers.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-020-76529-w