On the equivalence between the Barkhausen effect and directed Abelian sandpile models

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the Barkhausen effect exhibits self-organized criticality and is equivalent to undirected Abelian sandpile models, establishing it as an experimental observation of such phenomena.

Contribution

It shows that a recent domain wall dynamics model belongs to the universality class of undirected Abelian sandpile models, linking experimental and theoretical critical phenomena.

Findings

Barkhausen effect exhibits self-organized criticality

The domain wall model belongs to the universality class of undirected Abelian sandpile models

Barkhausen effect can be viewed as an experimental realization of self-organized critical phenomena

Abstract

The existence of self-organized criticality in the Barkhausen effect and its analogy with sandpile models is investigated. It is demonstrated that a model recently introduced to describe the dynamics of a domain wall [Cizeau et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 4669 (1997)] belongs to the universality class of undirected Abelian sandpile models. In this way it is shown that the Barhausen effect can be taken as an experimental observation of self-organized critical phenomena.