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The Barkhausen Effect: Avalanche Hysteresis Loop (2D)

A flat lattice of magnetic domains, each with its own pinning strength and coupling to its neighbours, flips in chain-reaction avalanches as an external field sweeps up and down, tracing a genuinely jagged B-H hysteresis loop with an audible click on every jump.

Physics & Mechanics2DAdvanced60 FPS⚡ Plasma ⇄ 3D version

This 2D companion rebuilds the Barkhausen effect from its actual statistical-physics model instead of animating a stylised domain wall: a flat lattice of spins with random per-site pinning strength and nearest-neighbour ferromagnetic coupling, driven by a slowly sweeping external field. Every spin flips the instant its own local field — external drive plus pinning plus the pull of its neighbours — crosses zero, and because a flip changes the local field felt next door, one small step of the field can cascade into a burst of neighbouring flips: an avalanche, played back as a single click. Sweep the field up from negative saturation to positive and back down and watch the running magnetization trace out a genuinely jagged, history-dependent B-H loop, with the defect-density preset controlling whether jumps come as many small clicks or a few large ones.

⚙ Under the hood

A flat lattice of magnetic domains driven by a random-field Ising model: each site carries its own pinning strength and couples to its four neighbours, flipping the instant its local field crosses zero and triggering chain-reaction avalanches — one audible click each — that trace out a genuinely jagged, history-dependent B-H hysteresis loop as the field sweeps up and back down.

magnetismcondensed matterferromagnetismrandom field Ising modelavalanche dynamicshysteresis loopself-organized criticalitymaterials science

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install