Dresden 2006 – scientific programme
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SYSS: Structure Formation and Self-Organization in non-equilibrium Systems
SYSS 3: Structure Formation and Self-Organization in non-equilibrium Systems - Poster
SYSS 3.7: Poster
Thursday, March 30, 2006, 16:00–18:00, P1
Surface roughening and self-organized criticality: the influence of quenched disorder. — •Christof Aegerter1, Marco Welling2, and Rinke Wijngaarden2 — 1Fachbereich Physik Universität Konstanz; Universitätstrasse 10; 78457 Konstanz — 2Vrije Universiteit; De Boelelan 1081; 1081HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Self-organized criticality (SOC) has attracted considerable interest due to its possible wide ranging impliations on broad range of subjects. However the experimental observation of SOC using stringent criteria has been difficult and the question of the critical parameters to observe SOC remans open. When SOC is observed, it often goes together with the appearance of a rough surface, indicating the importance of quenched disorder in the appearance of SOC. Here we study magnetic vortices penetrating a type-II superconductor in the presence of varying quenched disorder by introducing Hydrogen impurities. This problem can be mapped onto that of a growing pile of sand. The roughness properties of the vortex landscape and the avalanche size distribution are compared for different amounts of disorder. We find that (i) a minimal amount of quenched disorder is necessary to observe SOC and (ii) that the presence of a rough surface by itself cannot be used as a sufficient criterion for the observation of self-organized criticality.