2004/03/31 by C. J. Bolech, Alberto Rosso · 1 citation
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Material Dynamics and Properties #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.dis-nn #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.93.125701
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 125701 (2004) · 4 pages, 4 figures
openalex publication_date 2004/09/17 · arxiv created 2004/09/19 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study the rescaled probability distribution of the critical depinning force of an elastic system in a random medium. We put in evidence the underlying connection between the critical properties of the depinning transition and the extreme value statistics of correlated variables. The distribution is Gaussian for all periodic systems, while in the case of random manifolds there exists a family of universal functions ranging from the Gaussian to the Gumbel distribution. Both of these scenarios are a priori experimentally accessible in finite, macroscopic, disordered elastic systems.