Anisotropic suppression of hyperuniformity of elastic systems in media with planar disorder

TL;DR

This study investigates how planar correlated disorder affects hyperuniformity in elastic systems, revealing anisotropic suppression and potential recovery of hyperuniformity depending on sample thickness.

Contribution

It demonstrates that planar disorder causes anisotropic suppression of hyperuniformity in vortex matter, highlighting the importance of disorder type and sample thickness in hyperuniform materials.

Findings

Planar defects suppress hyperuniformity anisotropically.

Hyperuniformity can recover in the longitudinal direction for thick samples.

Disorder nature and thickness influence hyperuniformity in elastic systems.

Abstract

Disordered hyperuniform materials with vanishing long-wavelength density fluctuations are attracting attention due to their unique physical properties. In these systems, the large-scale density fluctuations are strongly suppressed as in a perfect crystal, even though the system can be disordered like a liquid. Yet, hyperuniformity can be affected by the different types of quenched disorder unavoidably present in the host medium where constituents are nucleated. Here, we use vortex matter in superconductors as a model elastic system to study how planar correlated disorder impacts the otherwise hyperuniform structure nucleated in samples with weak point disorder. Planes of defects suppress hyperuniformity in an anisotropic fashion: While in the transverse direction to defects the long-wavelength density fluctuations are non-vanishing, in the longitudinal direction they are smaller and the system can eventually recover hyperuniformity for sufficiently thick samples. Our findings stress the need of considering the nature of disorder and thickness-dependent dimensional crossovers in the search for novel hyperuniform materials.