biostudies-literatureUnknown10(1)Sanchez JAANPCyT ArgentinaInferring the nature of disorder in the media where elastic objects are nucleated is of crucial importance for many applications but remains a challenging basic-science problem. Here we propose a method to discern whether weak-point or strong-correlated disorder dominates based on characterizing the distribution of the interaction forces between objects mapped in large fields-of-view. We illustrate our proposal with the case-study system of vortex structures nucleated in type-II superconductors with different pinning landscapes. Interaction force distributions are computed from individual vortex positions imaged in thousands-vortices fields-of-view in a two-orders-of-magnitude-wide vortex-density range. Vortex structures nucleated in point-disordered media present Gaussian distributions ofScientific reports19452https://www.ebi.ac.uk/biostudies/studies/S-EPMC7655960biostudies-literatureNon-Gaussian tail in the force distribution: a hallmark of correlated disorder in the host media of elastic objects.PMC7655960Konczykowski Mvan der Beek CJNieva GFasano YKolton ABRumi GMaldonado RCPuig JDolz MISanchez JAPedrazzini PBolecek NRCfalseNon-Gaussian tail in the force distribution: a hallmark of correlated disorder in the host media of elastic objects.Inferring the nature of disorder in the media where elastic objects are nucleated is of crucial importance for many applications but remains a challenging basic-science problem. Here we propose a method to discern whether weak-point or strong-correlated disorder dominates based on characterizing the distribution of the interaction forces between objects mapped in large fields-of-view. We illustrate our proposal with the case-study system of vortex structures nucleated in type-II superconductors with different pinning landscapes. Interaction force distributions are computed from individual vortex positions imaged in thousands-vortices fields-of-view in a two-orders-of-magnitude-wide vortex-density range. Vortex structures nucleated in point-disordered media present Gaussian distributions of2020-01-01T00:00:00Z2020 Nov2026-05-07T15:28:14.349Z2025-05-18T12:19:31.924ZS-EPMC76559603317310510.1038/s41598-020-76529-w