November 7, 2007
3pm in Howey Physics Lecture Room 5

 

Valerii Vinokur, Argonne National Laboratory

"Dynamics of Vortex Structures "

Vortex matter is one of the most fundamental discoveries in the condensed matter physics, as evidenced by the Alex Abrikosov 2003 Nobel Prize. Vortices comprise an ideal tunable system with controllable parameters which allows for experimental verification of a rich variety of behaviors generic to all disordered materials: slow glassy dynamics at low driving forces, nonlinear response, critical behavior, and dynamic phase transitions between the different regimes of motion.  We focus on the vortex creep, depinning transition and dynamic melting phenomena.  We establish the connection between the vortex dynamics and the properties of underlying potential energy relief and show that the wealth of the dynamic behaviors is closely connected to the deep statistical properties of the macroscopic world governed by the extreme value statistics.