Abstract
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.
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Supplementary information
Supplementary Information, Domain Wall Motion
Domain wall motion in a soft magnetic material under the application of a slow varying magnetic field. The field is applied along the vertical direction, first up and then reversed. The jerky motion of the domain wall as it interacts with defects yields the Barkhausen effect. (MOV 1450 kb)
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Zapperi, S., Castellano, C., Colaiori, F. et al. Signature of effective mass in crackling-noise asymmetry. Nature Phys 1, 46–49 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys101
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys101
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