Experiments in vortex avalanches

TL;DR

This paper reviews experimental studies of vortex avalanches in type II superconductors, highlighting their statistical properties and the role of experimental techniques in understanding non-equilibrium vortex dynamics.

Contribution

It provides a critical review of recent experiments on vortex avalanches, emphasizing the insights gained into their statistical behavior and the experimental methods used.

Findings

Vortex avalanches exhibit complex statistical properties.

Different experimental techniques reveal diverse aspects of avalanche behavior.

Dynamically driven avalanches differ from thermally induced ones.

Abstract

Avalanche dynamics is found in many phenomena spanning from earthquakes to the evolution of species. It can be also found in vortex matter when a type II superconductor is externally driven, for example, by increasing the magnetic field. Vortex avalanches associated with thermal instabilities can be an undesirable effect for applications, but "dynamically driven" avalanches emerging from the competition between intervortex interactions and quenched disorder constitute an interesting scenario to test theoretical ideas related with non-equilibrium dynamics. However, differently from the equilibrium phases of vortex matter in type II superconductors, the study of the corresponding dynamical phases - in which avalanches can play a role - is still in its infancy. In this paper we critically review relevant experiments performed in the last decade or so, emphasizing the ability of different experimental techniques to establish the nature and statistical properties of the observed avalanche behavior.