Avalanches, Barkhausen Noise, and Plain Old Criticality

TL;DR

This paper models Barkhausen noise in magnetic systems as avalanches near a critical point, providing universal scaling functions and extensive simulations across multiple dimensions, validated by experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a universal scaling description of Barkhausen noise near criticality and compares theoretical predictions with large-scale simulations and experiments.

Findings

Universal scaling function for avalanche size distribution

Accurate critical exponents in 2 to 5 dimensions

Good agreement with experimental Barkhausen data

Abstract

We explain Barkhausen noise in magnetic systems in terms of avalanches near a plain old critical point in the hysteretic zero-temperature random-field Ising model. The avalanche size distribution has a universal scaling function, making non-trivial predictions of the shape of the distribution up to 50\% above the critical point, where two decades of scaling are still observed. We simulate systems with up to $1000^3$ domains, extract critical exponents in 2, 3, 4, and 5 dimensions, compare with our 2d and $6-\epsilon$ predictions, and compare to a variety of experimental Barkhausen measurements.