Avalanche correlations in the martensitic transition of a Cu-Zn-Al shape memory alloy: analysis of acoustic emission and calorimetry.

The existence of temporal correlations during the intermittent dynamics of a thermally driven structural phase transition is studied in a Cu-Zn-Al alloy. The sequence of avalanches is observed by means of two techniques: acoustic emission and high sensitivity calorimetry. Both methods reveal the existence of event clustering in a way that is equivalent to the Omori correlations between aftershocks in earthquakes as are commonly used in seismology.