Statistical mechanics of thin spherical shells

We explore how thermal fluctuations affect the mechanics of thin amorphous spherical shells. In flat membranes with a shear modulus, thermal fluctuations increase the bending rigidity and reduce the in-plane elastic moduli in a scale-dependent fashion. This is still true for spherical shells. However, the additional coupling between the shell curvature, the local in-plane stretching modes and the local out-of-plane undulations, leads to novel phenomena. In spherical shells thermal fluctuations produce a radius-dependent negative effective surface tension, equivalent to applying an inward external pressure. By adapting renormalization group calculations to allow for a spherical background curvature, we show that while small spherical shells are stable, sufficiently large shells are crushed by this thermally generated "pressure". Such shells can be stabilized by an outward osmotic pressure, but the effective shell size grows non-linearly with increasing outward pressure, with the same universal power law exponent that characterizes the response of fluctuating flat membranes to a uniform tension.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure

Juncture stress fields in multicellular shell structures. Volume IV - Stresses and deformations of fixed-edge segmental spherical shells Final report

Equations for thin elastic spherical shells and digital program for analysis of stresses and deformation of fixed edge segmental spherical shells - solution by finite difference techniqu

Newtonian and General Relativistic Models of Spherical Shells

A family of spherical shells with varying thickness is derived by using a simple Newtonian potential-density pair. Then, a particular isotropic form of a metric in spherical coordinates is used to construct a General Relativistic version of the Newtonian family of shells. The matter of these relativistic shells presents equal azimuthal and polar pressures, while the radial pressure is a constant times the tangential pressure. We also make a first study of stability of both the Newtonian and relativistic families of shells.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Dynamical Casimir effect for a massless scalar field between two concentric spherical shells

In this work we consider the dynamical Casimir effect for a massless scalar field -- under Dirichlet boundary conditions -- between two concentric spherical shells. We obtain a general expression for the average number of particle creation, for an arbitrary law of radial motion of the spherical shells, using two distinct methods: by computing the density operator of the system and by calculating the Bogoliubov coefficients. We apply our general expression to breathing modes: when only one of the shells oscillates and when both shells oscillate in or out of phase. We also analyze the number of particle production and compare it with the results for the case of plane geometry.Comment: Final version. To apear in Physical Review

Rods Near Curved Surfaces and in Curved Boxes

We consider an ideal gas of infinitely rigid rods near a perfectly repulsive wall, and show that the interfacial tension of a surface with rods on one side is lower when the surface bends towards the rods. Surprisingly we find that rods on both sides of surfaces also lower the energy when the surface bends. We compute the partition functions of rods confined to spherical and cylindrical open shells, and conclude that spherical shells repel rods, whereas cylindrical shells (for thickness of the shell on the order of the rod-length) attract them. The role of flexibility is investigated by considering chains composed of two rigid segments.Comment: 39 pages including figures and tables. 12 eps figures. LaTeX with REVTe

Newtonian and General Relativistic Models of Spherical Shells - II

A family of potential-density pairs that represent spherical shells with finite thickness is obtained from the superposition of spheres with finite radii. Other families of shells with infinite thickness with a central hole are obtained by inversion transformations of spheres and of the finite shells. We also present a family of double shells with finite thickness. All potential-density pairs are analytical and can be stated in terms of elementary functions. For the above-mentioned structures, we study the circular orbits of test particles and their stability with respect to radial perturbations. All examples presented are found to be stable. A particular isotropic form of a metric in spherical coordinates is used to construct a General Relativistic version of the Newtonian families of spheres and shells. The matter of these structures is anisotropic, and the degree of anisotropy is a function of the radius.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

An experimental study of the buckling of complete spherical shells

Buckling of complete spherical shells to examine Tsien energy hypothesi

Multi Shell Model for Majumdar-Papapetrau Spacetimes

Exact solutions to static and non-static Einstein-Maxwell equations in the presence of extremely charged dust embedded on thin shells are constructed. Singularities of multi-black hole Majumdar-Papapetrou and Kastor-Trashen solutions are removed by placing the matter on thin shells. Double spherical thin shell solution is given as an illustration and the matter densitiies on the shells are derived.Comment: To appear in Physical Review

Relativistic shells: Dynamics, horizons, and shell crossing

We consider the dynamics of timelike spherical thin matter shells in vacuum. A general formalism for thin shells matching two arbitrary spherical spacetimes is derived, and subsequently specialized to the vacuum case. We first examine the relative motion of two dust shells by focusing on the dynamics of the exterior shell, whereby the problem is reduced to that of a single shell with different active Schwarzschild masses on each side. We then examine the dynamics of shells with non-vanishing tangential pressure $p$, and show that there are no stable--stationary, or otherwise--solutions for configurations with a strictly linear barotropic equation of state, $p=\alpha\sigma$, where $\sigma$ is the proper surface energy density and $\alpha\in(-1,1)$. For {\em arbitrary} equations of state, we show that, provided the weak energy condition holds, the strong energy condition is necessary and sufficient for stability. We examine in detail the formation of trapped surfaces, and show explicitly that a thin boundary layer causes the apparent horizon to evolve discontinuously. Finally, we derive an analytical (necessary and sufficient) condition for neighboring shells to cross, and compare the discrete shell model with the well-known continuous Lema\^{\i}tre-Tolman-Bondi dust case.Comment: 25 pages, revtex4, 4 eps figs; published in Phys. Rev.