Numerical Experiments on Glassy Charge Density Waves

Abstract

A model of the deformable charge density wave (CDW) coupled to impurities in three dimensions is studied with computer experiments. Low energy states of adiabatic potentials are studied for a finite system in case of moderately high concentration of impurities. Special attention is paid to the nature of collective pinning and phase slippage processes accompanying the translational motion of the CDW. It is found that the domain size of a single slippage process has a broad distribution, typically over two orders of magnitude in volume. This distribution may be responsible for the experimentally observed glassy response of the CDW. Also it is shown that because of this distribution the CDW possesses memory of internal polarization which depends on the direction of its previous motion.