II superconductor in the nanowire form) [22], where there is a unique critical field whose value is markedly higher than the value of H$_{c}$ for bulk Pb. This attests to the type-I nature of the In nanowires. The differences between the critical fields during the field sweep-up and field sweep-down can be attributed to the phenomenon of superheating and supercooling where the ordered superconducting (disordered normal) phase is superheated (supercooled) across the first order SC-N phase transition. In such a scenario, there is the possibility for the existence of a multiplicity of superheated and supercooled metastable states. The nature of these metastable states depends on the exact magneto-thermal history during their formation. In order to elucidate the phenomena of superheating and supercooling across the SC-N transition in the case of In nanowires and for accessing and exploring the various metastable configurations, a set of protocols were followed to prepare the state of the system for magnetic measurements. These are enumerated below: I. Field cooling followed by a temperature shake (FCTS) : the sample is initially exposed to an external field, H$_{FC}$ at T$_{IN}$ > T$_{c}$ and then cooled to a temperature T$_{FC}$ < T$_{c}$ leading to the field cooled state (FC). This FC state is then taken to a tempera- ture T$_{FC}$ + Δ T$_{SH}$ and T$_{FC}$ − Δ T$_{SH}$ for the positive and negative temperature shake, respectively and then brought back to T$_{FC}$ before measurement. II. Field cooling followed by a field shake (FCFS) : after preparing the FC state, the sample is measured while sweeping the field up and down by an amount Δ H about H$_{FC}$ with the final measurement done at H$_{FC}$ after equal number of field sweeps in both directions. III. Field shake at a given field on the envelope M − H loop (FSL) : at various locations on the envelope M − H loop ( H$_{X}$ , T$_{X}$ ), minor hysteresis loops are made by sweeping the field up and down by an amount Δ H and after equal number of field sweeps in both directions, the sample is brought back to the starting location ( H$_{X}$ , T$_{X}$ ). Figure 3 shows a portion of the magnetization hysteresis ( M − H ) loop at 2.5 K (black line and symbols) with arrows marking the field sweep directions. The red diamond symbols corresponds to the magnetization values for the various metastable states accessed via the FCTS protocol (Protocol-I). The inset shows a color scale contour plot for the evolution of magnetization values from the field cooled state for various negative temperature shakes. 5