Reversible to Irreversible Flow Transition of Periodically Driven Vortices in the Strip Sample

Abstract The reversible to irreversible flow transition (RIT) has been observed in periodically driven colloidal suspensions and superconducting vortices in a Corbino-disk (CD) where a global shear is applied. To examine whether RIT is also observed in a system without the global shear but with a local shear, we have studied a vortex system of a strip-shaped amorphous Mo x Ge 1- x film in which only the local shear due to strong random pinning is present. We again obtain evidence of RIT with a critical behavior similar to that for CD. However, the reversible phase is suppressed and the relaxation time for the system to settle into the steady state grows significantly, whose origin is attributed to the stronger pinning effects.