The movie shows the steady-state motion of vortices through a sample with a triangular array of pinning sites. We add vortices at a constant rate to an unpinned region at the left edge of the sample, creating a gradient in vortex density that drives the vortices into the pinned region.
Circles represent vortices.
Half of the vortices shown are sitting in the regular array of pinning sites, and oscillate in the pinning sites without becoming depinned or moving through the sample. The other half of the vortices are located between rows of pinned vortices, and are following channels of vortex motion between the rows of pinning sites. Note the correlations among the channels of moving vortices. The movie was written out every 20 md steps.