Hysteretic Depinning of Anisotropic CDW

TL;DR

This paper studies the depinning transition in layered charge density waves with disorder, revealing a two-stage process with hysteresis in strong disorder and continuous transition in weak disorder, highlighting complex dynamics of CDWs.

Contribution

It introduces a model showing how anisotropic CDWs depin via a two-stage process with hysteresis in strong disorder, advancing understanding of CDW dynamics.

Findings

Depinning involves a two-stage process with hysteresis in strong disorder.

Weak disorder leads to a continuous depinning transition.

Depinning dynamics depend on disorder strength and anisotropy.

Abstract

We investigate the depinning transition in a dirty periodic medium considering a model of layered charge density waves as a prototype system. We find that depinning from strong disorder occurs via a two stage process, where, first, the pinned system experiences a continuous transition into a plastically sliding state and undergoes a second sharp hysteretic transition into a coherently moving 3D state at higher drives. In the weakly disordered system the depinning into a coherently sliding state remains continuous.