Flux-flow fingerprint of disorder: Melting versus tearing of a flux-line lattice

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Abstract
A steady-state inhomogeneous flow of a slowly moving flux-line lattice shows the fingerprint of the specific realization of dynamically generated disorder obtained through the interaction between the lattice and the quenched pinning centers. This is characteristic of ‘‘tearing’’ of a soft lattice and is pronounced in a narrow regime of the (H,T) phase diagram where the system is neither a stiff lattice nor a fluid. A first-order depinning transition accompanying this nonequilibrium dynamical phenomenon is fundamentally different from an equilibrium ‘‘melting’’ of a flux-line lattice. A length scale is proposed to describe the dynamics.