Pattern Formation on Trees

Networks having the geometry and the connectivity of trees are considered as the spatial support of spatiotemporal dynamical processes. A tree is characterized by two parameters: its ramification and its depth. The local dynamics at the nodes of a tree is described by a nonlinear map, given rise to a coupled map lattice system. The coupling is expressed by a matrix whose eigenvectors constitute a basis on which spatial patterns on trees can be expressed by linear combination. The spectrum of eigenvalues of the coupling matrix exhibit a nonuniform distribution which manifest itself in the bifurcation structure of the spatially synchronized modes. These models may describe reaction-diffusion processes and several other phenomena occurring on heterogeneous media with hierarchical structure.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. E, 15 pages, 9 fig

Pattern Formation in Semiconductors

In semiconductors, nonlinear generation and recombination processes of free carriers and nonlinear charge transport can give rise to non-equilibrium phase transitions. At low temperatures, the basic nonlinearity is due to the autocatalytic generation of free carriers by impact ionization of shallow impurities. The electric field accelerates free electrons, causing an abrupt increase in free carrier density at a critical electric field. In static electric fields, this nonlinearity is known to yield complex filamentary current patterns bound to electric contacts

Memory Driven Pattern Formation

The diffusion equation is extended by including spatial-temporal memory in such a manner that the conservation of the concentration is maintained. The additional memory term gives rise to the formation of non-trivial stationary solutions. The steady state pattern in an infinite domain is driven by a competition between conventional particle current and a feedback current. We give a general criteria for the existence of a non-trivial stationary state. The applicability of the model is tested in case of a strongly localized, time independent memory kernel. The resulting evolution equation is exactly solvable in arbitrary dimensions and the analytical solutions are compared with numerical simulations. When the memory term offers an spatially decaying behavior, we find also the exact stationary solution in form of a screened potential.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figure

Elastic Instability Triggered Pattern Formation

Recent experiments have exploited elastic instabilities in membranes to create complex patterns. However, the rational design of such structures poses many challenges, as they are products of nonlinear elastic behavior. We pose a simple model for determining the orientational order of such patterns using only linear elasticity theory which correctly predicts the outcomes of several experiments. Each element of the pattern is modeled by a "dislocation dipole" located at a point on a lattice, which then interacts elastically with all other dipoles in the system. We explicitly consider a membrane with a square lattice of circular holes under uniform compression and examine the changes in morphology as it is allowed to relax in a specified direction.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, the full catastroph

Pattern formation in annular convection

This study of spatio-temporal pattern formation in an annulus is motivated by two physical problems on vastly different scales. The first is atmospheric convection in the equatorial plane between the warm surface of the Earth and the cold tropopause, modeled by the two dimensional Boussinesq equations. The second is annular electroconvection in a thin semetic film, where experiments reveal the birth of convection-like vortices in the plane as the electric field intensity is increased. This is modeled by two dimensional Navier-Stokes equations coupled with a simplified version of Maxwell's equations. The two models share fundamental mathematical properties and satisfy the prerequisites for application of O(2)-equivariant bifurcation theory. We show this can give predictions of interesting dynamics, including stationary and spatio-temporal patterns

Models of Liesegang pattern formation

In this article different mathematical models of the Liesegang phenomenon are exhibited. The main principles of modeling are discussed such as supersaturation theory, sol coagulation and phase separation, which describe the phenomenon using different steps and mechanism beyond the simple reaction scheme. We discuss whether the underlying numerical simulations are able to reproduce several empirical regularities and laws of the corresponding pattern structure. In all cases we highlight the meaning of the initial and boundary conditions in the corresponding mathematical formalism. Above the deterministic ones discrete stochastic approaches are also described. As a main tool for the control of pattern structure the effect of an external electric field is also discussed

Pattern formation in quantum Turing machines

We investigate the iteration of a sequence of local and pair unitary transformations, which can be interpreted to result from a Turing-head (pseudo-spin $S$) rotating along a closed Turing-tape ($M$ additional pseudo-spins). The dynamical evolution of the Bloch-vector of $S$, which can be decomposed into $2^{M}$ primitive pure state Turing-head trajectories, gives rise to fascinating geometrical patterns reflecting the entanglement between head and tape. These machines thus provide intuitive examples for quantum parallelism and, at the same time, means for local testing of quantum network dynamics.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.A, 3 figures, REVTEX fil