Avalanche statistics and intermittency in topological defect-mediated flows

Abstract

Topological defects dominate the deformation response of materials in processes ranging from quantum turbulence to crystal plasticity. We calculate the probability distribution function for the fluctuations in velocity $v$, using scaling arguments and a systematic cluster expansion method to account for density correlations. We find that the distribution has power-law tails with an exponent that takes the value -3 for $v\rightarrow \infty$, but a value -2 for intermediate values of $v$. We relate these regimes to the theory of avalanches, by directly computing the known avalanche scaling exponents.