Critical behavior at depinning of driven disordered vortex matter in 2H-NbS₂

Abstract

We report unusual jamming in driven ordered vortex flow in 2H-NbS₂. Reinitiating movement in these jammed vortices with a higher driving force and halting it thereafter once again with a reduction in drive leads to a critical behavior centered around the depinning threshold via divergences in the lifetimes of transient states, validating the predictions of a recent simulation study [ Reichhardt and Olson Reichhardt Phys. Rev. Lett. 103 168301 (2009)] which also pointed out a correspondence between plastic depinning in vortex matter and the notion of random organization proposed [ Corte et al. Nat. Phys. 4 420 (2008)] in the context of sheared colloids undergoing diffusive motion.