Memory effects in Amorphous Solids below 20 mK

Abstract

At temperatures below 1 K, the capacitance of a glass sample changes due to the application of a DC field in accordance with A. Burins dipole gap theory. However, we now report that below 20 mK, during the first sweep cycle of the DC electric field the capacitance is smaller by about $10^{-5}$ compared to any subsequent sweep. Despite this overall shift the field dependence follows the dipole gap predictions. In a subsequent sweep to higher DC fields the dielectric constant drops by about $10^{-5}$ as soon as the applied field is higher than any field previously applied. A picture involving the dynamics of resonant pairs provides a qualitative description of this behavior.