Driven Dynamics of Periodic Elastic Media in Disorder

TL;DR

This paper investigates the large-scale driven dynamics of elastic media like vortex lattices and charge density waves in disordered environments, deriving non-equilibrium effects and analyzing phase transitions.

Contribution

It provides an explicit derivation of non-equilibrium terms in the equations of motion, including KPZ non-linearities, and clarifies the absence of glassy features in the drifting state.

Findings

Absence of diverging linear friction coefficients in the driven state

Identification of different elastic and plastic phases in the phase diagram

Derivation of non-equilibrium terms using a perturbative coarse-graining approach

Abstract

We analyze the large-scale dynamics of vortex lattices and charge density waves driven in a disordered potential. Using a perturbative coarse-graining procedure we present an explicit derivation of non-equilibrium terms in the renormalized equation of motion, in particular Kardar-Parisi-Zhang non-linearities and dynamic strain terms. We demonstrate the absence of glassy features like diverging linear friction coefficients and transverse critical currents in the drifting state. We discuss the structure of the dynamical phase diagram containing different elastic phases very small and very large drive and plastic phases at intermediate velocity.