Letter abstract
Nature Physics 1, 46 - 49 (2005)
doi:10.1038/nphys101
Subject Categories: Statistical physics, thermodynamics and nonlinear dynamics | Condensed-matter physics | Electronics, photonics and device physics
Signature of effective mass in crackling-noise asymmetry
Stefano Zapperi1,2, Claudio Castellano1,2, Francesca Colaiori1,2 and Gianfranco Durin3
Crackling noise is a common feature in many dynamic systems1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, the most familiar instance of which is the sound made by a sheet of paper when crumpled into a ball. Although seemingly random, this noise contains fundamental information about the properties of the system in which it occurs. One potential source of such information lies in the asymmetric shape of noise pulses emitted by a diverse range of noisy systems8, 9, 10, 11, 12, but the cause of this asymmetry has lacked explanation1. Here we show that the leftward asymmetry observed in the Barkhausen effect2 — the noise generated by the jerky motion of domain walls as they interact with impurities in a soft magnet—is a direct consequence of a magnetic domain wall's negative effective mass. As well as providing a means of determining domain-wall effective mass from a magnet's Barkhausen noise, our work suggests an inertial explanation for the origin of avalanche asymmetries in crackling-noise phenomena more generally.
- CNR-INFM SMC, Dipartimento di Fisica, Università "La Sapienza", P.le A. Moro 2, 00185 Roma, Italy
- Istituto dei Sistemi Complessi, CNR, Via dei Taurini 9, 00185 Roma, Italy
- IEN Galileo Ferraris and Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica, str. delle Cacce 91, 10135 Torino, Italy
Correspondence to: Claudio Castellano1,2 e-mail: castella@pil.phys.uniroma1.it
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