Inverted critical adsorption of polyelectrolytes in confinement

What are the fundamental laws for the adsorption of charged polymers onto oppositely charged surfaces, for convex, planar, and concave geometries? This question is at the heart of surface coating applications, various complex formation phenomena, as well as in the context of cellular and viral biophysics. It has been a long-standing challenge in theoretical polymer physics; for realistic systems the quantitative understanding is however often achievable only by computer simulations. In this study, we present the findings of such extensive Monte-Carlo in silico experiments for polymer-surface adsorption in confined domains. We study the inverted critical adsorption of finite-length polyelectrolytes in three fundamental geometries: planar slit, cylindrical pore, and spherical cavity. The scaling relations extracted from simulations for the critical surface charge density $\sigma_c$-defining the adsorption-desorption transition-are in excellent agreement with our analytical calculations based on the ground-state analysis of the Edwards equation. In particular, we confirm the magnitude and scaling of $\sigma_c$ for the concave interfaces versus the Debye screening length $1/\kappa$ and the extent of confinement $a$ for these three interfaces for small $\kappa a$ values. For large $\kappa a$ the critical adsorption condition approaches the planar limit. The transition between the two regimes takes place when the radius of surface curvature or half of the slit thickness $a$ is of the order of $1/\kappa$. We also rationalize how $\sigma_c(\kappa)$ gets modified for semi-flexible versus flexible chains under external confinement. We examine the implications of the chain length onto critical adsorption-the effect often hard to tackle theoretically-putting an emphasis on polymers inside attractive spherical cavities.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, RevTe

Relativistic stars with a linear equation of state: analogy with classical isothermal spheres and black holes

We complete our previous investigation concerning the structure and the stability of "isothermal" spheres in general relativity. This concerns objects that are described by a linear equation of state $P=q\epsilon$ so that the pressure is proportional to the energy density. In the Newtonian limit $q\to 0$, this returns the classical isothermal equation of state. We consider specifically a self-gravitating radiation (q=1/3), the core of neutron stars (q=1/3) and a gas of baryons interacting through a vector meson field (q=1). We study how the thermodynamical parameters scale with the size of the object and find unusual behaviours due to the non-extensivity of the system. We compare these scaling laws with the area scaling of the black hole entropy. We also determine the domain of validity of these scaling laws by calculating the critical radius above which relativistic stars described by a linear equation of state become dynamically unstable. For photon stars, we show that the criteria of dynamical and thermodynamical stability coincide. Considering finite spheres, we find that the mass and entropy as a function of the central density present damped oscillations. We give the critical value of the central density, corresponding to the first mass peak, above which the series of equilibria becomes unstable. Finally, we extend our results to d-dimensional spheres. We show that the oscillations of mass versus central density disappear above a critical dimension d_{crit}(q). For Newtonian isothermal stars (q=0) we recover the critical dimension d_{crit}=10. For the stiffest stars (q=1) we find d_{crit}=9 and for a self-gravitating radiation (q=1/d) we find d_{crit}=9.96404372... very close to 10. Finally, we give analytical solutions of relativistic isothermal spheres in 2D gravity.Comment: A minor mistake in calculation has been corrected in the second version (v2

Quantum fluids of light

This article reviews recent theoretical and experimental advances in the fundamental understanding and active control of quantum fluids of light in nonlinear optical systems. In presence of effective photon-photon interactions induced by the optical nonlinearity of the medium, a many-photon system can behave collectively as a quantum fluid with a number of novel features stemming from its intrinsically non-equilibrium nature. We present a rich variety of photon hydrodynamical effects that have been recently observed, from the superfluid flow around a defect at low speeds, to the appearance of a Mach-Cherenkov cone in a supersonic flow, to the hydrodynamic formation of topological excitations such as quantized vortices and dark solitons at the surface of large impenetrable obstacles. While our review is mostly focused on a class of semiconductor systems that have been extensively studied in recent years (namely planar semiconductor microcavities in the strong light-matter coupling regime having cavity polaritons as elementary excitations), the very concept of quantum fluids of light applies to a broad spectrum of systems, ranging from bulk nonlinear crystals, to atomic clouds embedded in optical fibers and cavities, to photonic crystal cavities, to superconducting quantum circuits based on Josephson junctions. The conclusive part of our article is devoted to a review of the exciting perspectives to achieve strongly correlated photon gases. In particular, we present different mechanisms to obtain efficient photon blockade, we discuss the novel quantum phases that are expected to appear in arrays of strongly nonlinear cavities, and we point out the rich phenomenology offered by the implementation of artificial gauge fields for photons.Comment: Accepted for publication on Rev. Mod. Phys. (in press, 2012

Two-component mixture of charged particles confined in a channel: melting

The melting of a binary system of charged particles confined in a {\it quasi}-one-dimensional parabolic channel is studied through Monte Carlo simulations. At zero temperature the particles are ordered in parallel chains. The melting is anisotropic and different melting temperatures are obtained according to the spatial direction, and the different types of particles present in the system. Melting is very different for the single-, two- and four-chain configurations. A temperature induced structural phase transition is found between two different four chain ordered states which is absent in the mono-disperse system. In the mixed regime, where the two types of particles are only slightly different, melting is almost isotropic and a thermally induced homogeneous distribution of the distinct types of charges is observed.Comment: To appear in Journal of Physics: condensed matter ; (13 pages, 12 figures

From the Hartree equation to the Vlasov-Poisson system: strong convergence for a class of mixed states

We consider the evolution of $N$ fermions interacting through a Coulomb or gravitational potential in the mean-field limit as governed by the nonlinear Hartree equation with Coulomb or gravitational interaction. In the limit of large $N$, we study the convergence in trace norm towards the classical Vlasov-Poisson equation for a special class of mixed quasi-free states.Comment: 21 pages. Typos corrected, references updated and detailed proof of Lemma 2.4 adde

Systems of Points with Coulomb Interactions

Large ensembles of points with Coulomb interactions arise in various settings of condensed matter physics, classical and quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, random matrices and even approximation theory, and give rise to a variety of questions pertaining to calculus of variations, Partial Differential Equations and probability. We will review these as well as "the mean-field limit" results that allow to derive effective models and equations describing the system at the macroscopic scale. We then explain how to analyze the next order beyond the mean-field limit, giving information on the system at the microscopic level. In the setting of statistical mechanics, this allows for instance to observe the effect of the temperature and to connect with crystallization questions.Comment: 30 pages, to appear as Proceedings of the ICM201