Temporal Order in Dirty Driven Periodic Media

TL;DR

This paper investigates the non-equilibrium steady states of driven charge density waves with impurities, predicting a dynamical phase transition in 3D and destruction of order in 2D, with implications for noise measurements and other driven media.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical analysis of phase transitions and order in driven periodic media with impurities, highlighting differences between 2D and 3D systems.

Findings

In 3D, a dynamical phase transition to a temporally periodic state is predicted.

In 2D, impurity-induced phase slips destroy the periodic 'moving solid' phase.

Implications for narrow band noise measurements and other driven media are discussed.

Abstract

We consider the non--equilibrium steady states of a driven charge density wave in the presence of impurities and noise. In three dimensions at strong drive, a true dynamical phase transition into a temporally periodic state with quasi--long--range translational order is predicted. In two dimensions, impurity induced phase slips are argued to destroy the periodic ``moving solid'' phase. Implications for narrow band noise measurements and relevance to other driven periodic media, e.g. vortex lattices, are discussed.