Braided rivers and superconducting vortex avalanches

Magnetic vortices intermittently flow through preferred channels when they are forced in or out of a superconductor. We study this behavior using a ce llular model, and find that the vortex flow can make braided rivers strikin gly similar to aerial photographs of braided fluvial rivers, such as the Br ahmaputra. By developing an analysis technique suitable for characterizing a self-affine (multi)fractal, the scaling properties of the braided vortex rivers in the model are compared with those of braided fluvial rivers. We s uggest that avalanche dynamics leads to braiding in both cases.