Shape waves are excitations propagating along Josephson vortices or fluxons. In the case of two-dimensional Josephson junctions (thick long Josephson junctions with an extra dimension) described by the 2D sine-Gordon equation, shape waves are distortions of a Josephson vortex line of an arbitrary profile. Shape waves have remarkable properties exhibiting Lorentz contraction and time dilation similar to that in special relativity. Position of the shape wave excitation on a Josephson vortex acts like a “minute-hand” showing the time in the rest-frame associated with the vortex. At some conditions, a moving vortex with the shape excitation can have less energy than the same vortex without it.
Famous quotes containing the words shape and/or waves:
“Thus when I come to shape here at this table between my hands the story of my life and set it before you as a complete thing, I have to recall things gone far, gone deep, sunk into this life or that and become part of it; dreams, too, things surrounding me, and the inmates, those old half-articulate ghosts who keep up their hauntings by day and night ... shadows of people one might have been; unborn selves.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“Flow, flow the waves hated,
Accursed, adored,
The waves of mutation:
No anchorage is.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)