We report observations of spontaneous formation of magnetic flux lines during a rapid quench of YBa₂Cu₃O_7-δ films through Tc. This effect is predicted according to the Kibble-Zurek mechanism of creation of topological defects of the order parameter during a symmetry-breaking phase transition. Our previous experiment, at a quench rate of 20 K/s, gave null results. In the present experiment, the quench rate was increased to >10⁸ K/s. The amount of spontaneous flux increases weakly with the cooling rate.
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Maniv et al. (2003) studied this question.
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