Possibility of the Solid-Fluid Transition in Moving Periodic Systems

TL;DR

This paper investigates the dynamical phase transition in periodic systems under driving forces, revealing a transient moving solid phase that depends on observation time and force magnitude.

Contribution

It introduces a numerical analysis of the transition between plastic flow and moving solid phases, highlighting the finite-time stability of the moving solid state.

Findings

Co-moving clusters percolate above a critical force

Critical force diverges logarithmically with observation time

Moving solid phase exists only within finite observation times

Abstract

The steady sliding state of periodic structures such as charge density waves and flux line lattices is numerically studied based on two and three dimensional driven random field XY models. We focus on the dynamical phase transition between plastic flow and moving solid phases controlled by the magnitude of the driving force. By analyzing the connectivity of co-moving clusters, we find that they percolate the system within a finite observation time under driving forces larger than a certain critical force. The critical force, however, logarithmically diverges with the observation time, i.e. the moving solid phase exhibits only within a certain finite time, which exponentially grows with the driving force.