SEARCH FOR AGING EFFECTS IN RANDOMLY PINNED CHARGE-DENSITY WAVES

We have investigated the decay of the charge-density-wave (CDW) Polarization induced by the application of electric-field pulses of various lengths. Our results show the same features as the energy relaxation in low-temperature specific-heat experiments. We argue that both phenomena can be well described in the framework of linear-response theory. Though there are similarities to the aging effects in spin glasses, in the case of CDW's these simply arise from the nonexponential nature of the relaxation. We show that in the case of charge-density waves there is no change in the barrier distribution when the system is allowed to age.