Slow relaxation experiments in disordered charge and spin density waves: collective dynamics of randomly distributed solitons

Abstract

We show that the dynamics of disordered charge density waves (CDWs) and spin density waves (SDWs) is a collective phenomenon. The very low temperature specific heat relaxation experiments are characterized by: (i) ``interrupted'' ageing (meaning that there is a maximal relaxation time); and (ii) a broad power-law spectrum of relaxation times which is the signature of a collective phenomenon. We propose a random energy model that can reproduce these two observations and from which it is possible to obtain an estimate of the glass cross-over temperature (typically $T_g \simeq 100 - 200$ mK). The broad relaxation time spectrum can also be obtained from the solutions of two microscopic models involving randomly distributed solitons. The collective behavior is similar to domain growth dynamics in the presence of disorder and can be described by the dynamical renormalization group that was proposed recently for the one dimensional random field Ising model [D.S. Fisher, P. Le Doussal and C. Monthus, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 80}, 3539 (1998)]. The typical relaxation time scales like $\tau^{\rm typ} \sim \tau_0 \exp{(T_g/T)}$. The glass cross-over temperature $T_g$ related to correlations among solitons is equal to the average energy barrier and scales like $T_g \sim 2 x \xi_0 \Delta$. $x$ is the concentration of defects, $\xi_0$ the correlation length of the CDW or SDW and $\Delta$ the charge or spin gap.