41 research outputs found
Equilibrium Phase Behavior and Maximally Random Jammed State of Truncated Tetrahedra
Systems of hard nonspherical particles exhibit a variety of stable phases
with different degrees of translational and orientational order, including
isotropic liquid, solid crystal, rotator and a variety of liquid crystal
phases. In this paper, we employ a Monte Carlo implementation of the
adaptive-shrinking-cell (ASC) numerical scheme and free-energy calculations to
ascertain with high precision the equilibrium phase behavior of systems of
congruent Archimedean truncated tetrahedra over the entire range of possible
densities up to the maximal nearly space-filling density. In particular, we
find that the system undergoes two first-order phase transitions as the density
increases: first a liquid-solid transition and then a solid-solid transition.
The isotropic liquid phase coexists with the Conway-Torquato (CT) crystal phase
at intermediate densities. At higher densities, we find that the CT phase
undergoes another first-order phase transition to one associated with the
densest-known crystal. We find no evidence for stable rotator (or plastic) or
nematic phases. We also generate the maximally random jammed (MRJ) packings of
truncated tetrahedra, which may be regarded to be the glassy end state of a
rapid compression of the liquid. We find that such MRJ packings are
hyperuniform with an average packing fraction of 0.770, which is considerably
larger than the corresponding value for identical spheres (about 0.64). We
conclude with some simple observations concerning what types of phase
transitions might be expected in general hard-particle systems based on the
particle shape and which would be good glass formers
Comment on "Explicit Analytical Solution for Random Close Packing in and "
In this short commentary we provide our comment on the article "Explicit
Analytical Solution for Random Close Packing in and " and its
subsequent Erratum that are recently published in Physical Review Letters. In
that Letter, the author presented an explicit analytical derivation of the
volume fractions for random close packings (RCP) in both
and . Here we first briefly show the key parts of the derivation in
Ref.~\cite{Za22}, and then provide arguments on why we think the derivation of
the analytical results is problematic and unjustified, and why the Erratum does
not address or clarify the concerns raised previously by us
Structural characterization and statistical-mechanical model of epidermal patterns
In proliferating epithelia of mammalian skin, cells of irregular
polygonal-like shapes pack into complex nearly flat two-dimensional structures
that are pliable to deformations. In this work, we employ various sensitive
correlation functions to quantitatively characterize structural features of
evolving packings of epithelial cells across length scales in mouse skin. We
find that the pair statistics in direct and Fourier spaces of the cell
centroids in the early stages of embryonic development show structural
directional dependence, while in the late stages the patterns tend towards
statistically isotropic states. We construct a minimalist four-component
statistical-mechanical model involving effective isotropic pair interactions
consisting of hard-core repulsion and extra short-ranged soft-core repulsion
beyond the hard core, whose length scale is roughly the same as the hard core.
The model parameters are optimized to match the sample pair statistics in both
direct and Fourier spaces. By doing this, the parameters are biologically
constrained. Our model predicts essentially the same polygonal shape
distribution and size disparity of cells found in experiments as measured by
Voronoi statistics. Moreover, our simulated equilibrium liquid-like
configurations are able to match other nontrivial unconstrained statistics,
which is a testament to the power and novelty of the model. We discuss ways in
which our model might be extended so as to better understand morphogenesis (in
particular the emergence of planar cell polarity), wound-healing, and disease
progression processes in skin, and how it could be applied to the design of
synthetic tissues
A Cellular Automaton Model for Tumor Dormancy: Emergence of a Proliferative Switch
Malignant cancers that lead to fatal outcomes for patients may remain dormant
for very long periods of time. Although individual mechanisms such as cellular
dormancy, angiogenic dormancy and immunosurveillance have been proposed, a
comprehensive understanding of cancer dormancy and the "switch" from a dormant
to a proliferative state still needs to be strengthened from both a basic and
clinical point of view. Computational modeling enables one to explore a variety
of scenarios for possible but realistic microscopic dormancy mechanisms and
their predicted outcomes. The aim of this paper is to devise such a predictive
computational model of dormancy with an emergent "switch" behavior.
Specifically, we generalize a previous cellular automaton (CA) model for
proliferative growth of solid tumor that now incorporates a variety of
cell-level tumor-host interactions and different mechanisms for tumor dormancy,
for example the effects of the immune system. Our new CA rules induce a natural
"competition" between the tumor and tumor suppression factors in the
microenvironment. This competition either results in a "stalemate" for a period
of time in which the tumor either eventually wins (spontaneously emerges) or is
eradicated; or it leads to a situation in which the tumor is eradicated before
such a "stalemate" could ever develop. We also predict that if the number of
actively dividing cells within the proliferative rim of the tumor reaches a
critical, yet low level, the dormant tumor has a high probability to resume
rapid growth. Our findings may shed light on the fundamental understanding of
cancer dormancy
Vibrational Properties of One-Dimensional Disordered Hyperuniform Atomic Chains
Disorder hyperuniformity (DHU) is a recently discovered exotic state of
many-body systems that possess a hidden order in between that of a perfect
crystal and a completely disordered system. Recently, this novel DHU state has
been observed in a number of quantum materials including amorphous 2D graphene
and silica, which are endowed with unexpected electronic transport properties.
Here, we numerically investigate 1D atomic chain models, including perfect
crystalline, disordered hyperuniform as well as randomly perturbed atom packing
configurations to obtain a quantitative understanding of how the unique DHU
disorder affects the vibrational properties of these low-dimensional materials.
We find that the DHU chains possess lower cohesive energies compared to the
randomly perturbed chains, implying their potential reliability in experiments.
Our inverse partition ratio (IPR) calculations indicate that the DHU chains can
support fully delocalized states just like perfect crystalline chains over a
wide range of frequencies, i.e., cm, suggesting
superior phonon transport behaviors within these frequencies, which was
traditionally considered impossible in disordered systems. Interestingly, we
observe the emergence of a group of highly localized states associated with
cm, which is characterized by a significant peak in
the IPR and a peak in phonon density of states at the corresponding frequency,
and is potentially useful for decoupling electron and phonon degrees of
freedom. These unique properties of DHU chains have implications in the design
and engineering of novel DHU quantum materials for thermal and phononic
applications.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
Universal Hyperuniform Organization in Looped Leaf Vein Networks
Leaf vein network is a hierarchical vascular system that transports water and
nutrients to the leaf cells. The thick primary veins form a branched network,
while the secondary veins develop closed circuits forming a well-defined
cellular structure. Through extensive analysis of a variety of distinct leaf
species, we discover that the apparently disordered cellular structures of the
secondary vein networks exhibit a universal hyperuniform organization and
possess a hidden order on large scales. Disorder hyperuniform (DHU) systems
lack conventional long-range order, yet they completely suppress normalized
large-scale density fluctuations like crystals. Specifically, we find that the
distributions of the geometric centers associated with the vein network loops
possess a vanishing static structure factor in the zero-wavenumber limit, i.e.,
, where , providing an example of
class III hyperuniformity in biology. This hyperuniform organization leads to
superior efficiency of diffusive transport, as evidenced by the much faster
convergence of the time-dependent spreadability to its
long-time asymptotic limit, compared to that of other uncorrelated or
correlated disordered but non-hyperuniform organizations. Our results also have
implications for the discovery and design of novel disordered network materials
with optimal transport properties.Comment: 6 pages; 4 figure