Simple Model of Collective Transport with Phase Slippage

We present a mean-field analysis of a many-body dynamical system which models charge-density-wave transport in the presence of random pinning impurities. Phase slip between charge-density-wave domains is modeled by a coupling term that is periodic in the phase differences. When driven by an external field, the system exhibits a first-order depinning transition, hysteresis, and switching between pinned and sliding states, and a delayed onset of sliding near threshold.