IENI-CNR paper on the avalanche oscillator was featured on the cover of Nature.

Many systems respond impulsively to slowly increasing external stresses: Normally smooth processes of stress release are disrupted intermittently by large random events, the avalanches, and the system undergoes abrupt structural changes. Using a combination of theory and experiment in a model system consisting of nickel microcrystals under compression, In collaboration with researchers at Yale, Cornell and the Air Force Research Laboratory, we investigated an intermediate regime where the smooth background processes occur at similar rates with the one of the external stress, leading to the unusual observation of oscillatory behaviour in the fast avalanches themselves. This finding is, in principle, applicable to all intermittent phenomena with coexisting slow relaxations that compete to minimize local internal stresses, for example complex networks — such as the brain — during relaxation, disordered/jammed solids and earthquake faults, forcing a re-interpretation of experimental and simulation data.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v490/n7421/full/nature11568.html

http://www.stampa.cnr.it/DocUfficioStampa/comunicati/italiano/2012/Ottobre/82_OTT_2012.HTM

stefano.zapperi@ieni.cnr.it