208,387 research outputs found
Two-dimensional melting far from equilibrium in a granular monolayer
We report an experimental investigation of the transition from a hexagonally
ordered solid phase to a disordered liquid in a monolayer of vibrated spheres.
The transition occurs as the intensity of the vibration amplitude is increased.
Measurements of the density of dislocations and the positional and
orientational correlation functions show evidence for a dislocation-mediated
continuous transition from a solid phase with long-range order to a liquid with
only short-range order. The results show a strong similarity to simulations of
melting of hard disks in equilibrium, despite the fact that the granular
monolayer is far from equilibrium due to the effects of interparticle
dissipation and the vibrational forcing.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Linker-mediated self-assembly of mobile DNA-coated colloids
Developing construction methods of materials tailored for given applications
with absolute control over building block placement poses an immense challenge.
DNA-coated colloids offer the possibility of realising programmable
self-assembly, which, in principle, can assemble almost any structure in
equilibrium, but remains challenging experimentally. Here, we propose an
innovative system of linker-mediated mobile DNA-coated colloids (mDNACCs), in
which mDNACCs are bridged by the free DNA linkers in solution, whose two
single-stranded DNA tails can bind with specific single-stranded DNA receptors
of complementary sequence coated on colloids. We formulate a mean-field theory
efficiently calculating the effective interaction between mDNACCs, where the
entropy of DNA linkers plays a nontrivial role. Particularly, when the binding
between free DNA linkers in solution and the corresponding receptors on mDNACCs
is strong, the linker-mediated colloidal interaction is determined by the
linker entropy depending on the linker concentration
Berryogenesis: self-induced Berry flux and spontaneous non-equilibrium magnetism
Spontaneous symmetry breaking is central to the description of interacting
phases of matter. Here we reveal a new mechanism through which a driven
interacting system subject to a time-reversal symmetric driving field can
spontaneously magnetize. We show that the strong internal ac fields of a metal
driven close to its plasmon resonance may enable Berryogenesis: the spontaneous
generation of a self-induced Bloch band Berry flux. The self-induced Berry flux
supports and is sustained by a circulating plasmonic motion, which may arise
even for a linearly polarized driving field. This non-equilibrium phase
transition occurs above a critical driving amplitude, and may be of either
continuous or discontinuous type. Berryogenesis relies on feedback due to
interband coherences induced by internal fields, and may readily occur in a
wide variety of multiband systems. We anticipate that graphene devices, in
particular, provide a natural platform to achieve Berryogenesis and
plasmon-mediated spontaneous non-equilibrium magnetization in present-day
devices
Privacy and Truthful Equilibrium Selection for Aggregative Games
We study a very general class of games --- multi-dimensional aggregative
games --- which in particular generalize both anonymous games and weighted
congestion games. For any such game that is also large, we solve the
equilibrium selection problem in a strong sense. In particular, we give an
efficient weak mediator: a mechanism which has only the power to listen to
reported types and provide non-binding suggested actions, such that (a) it is
an asymptotic Nash equilibrium for every player to truthfully report their type
to the mediator, and then follow its suggested action; and (b) that when
players do so, they end up coordinating on a particular asymptotic pure
strategy Nash equilibrium of the induced complete information game. In fact,
truthful reporting is an ex-post Nash equilibrium of the mediated game, so our
solution applies even in settings of incomplete information, and even when
player types are arbitrary or worst-case (i.e. not drawn from a common prior).
We achieve this by giving an efficient differentially private algorithm for
computing a Nash equilibrium in such games. The rates of convergence to
equilibrium in all of our results are inverse polynomial in the number of
players . We also apply our main results to a multi-dimensional market game.
Our results can be viewed as giving, for a rich class of games, a more robust
version of the Revelation Principle, in that we work with weaker informational
assumptions (no common prior), yet provide a stronger solution concept (ex-post
Nash versus Bayes Nash equilibrium). In comparison to previous work, our main
conceptual contribution is showing that weak mediators are a game theoretic
object that exist in a wide variety of games -- previously, they were only
known to exist in traffic routing games
Quenched Charge Disorder and Coulomb Interactions
We develop a general formalism to investigate the effect of quenched fixed
charge disorder on effective electrostatic interactions between charged
surfaces in a one-component (counterion-only) Coulomb fluid. Analytical results
are explicitly derived for two asymptotic and complementary cases: i)
mean-field or Poisson-Boltzmann limit (including Gaussian-fluctuations
correction), which is valid for small electrostatic coupling, and ii)
strong-coupling limit, where electrostatic correlations mediated by counterions
become significantly large as, for instance, realized in systems with
high-valency counterions. In the particular case of two apposed and ideally
polarizable planar surfaces with equal mean surface charge, we find that the
effect of the disorder is nil on the mean-field level and thus the plates
repel. In the strong-coupling limit, however, the effect of charge disorder
turns out to be additive in the free energy and leads to an enhanced long-range
attraction between the two surfaces. We show that the equilibrium inter-plate
distance between the surfaces decreases for elevated disorder strength (i.e.
for increasing mean-square deviation around the mean surface charge), and
eventually tends to zero, suggesting a disorder-driven collapse transition.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure
Tuning gaps and phases of a two-subband system in a quantizing magnetic field
In this work we study the properties of a two-subband quasi-two-dimensional
electron system in a strong magnetic field when the electron filling factor is
equal to four. When the cyclotron energy is close to the intersubband splitting
the system can be mapped onto a four-level electron system with an effective
filling factor of two. The ground state is either a ferromagnetic state or a
spin-singlet state, depending on the values of the inter-level splitting and
Zeeman energy. The boundaries between these phases are strongly influenced by
the inter-electron interaction. A significant exchange-mediated enhancement of
the excitation gap results in the suppression of the electron-phonon
interaction. The rate of absorption of non-equilibrium phonons is calculated as
a function of Zeeman energy and inter-subband splitting. The phonon absorption
rate has two peaks as a function of intersubband splitting and has a step-like
structure as a function of Zeeman energy
Lepton-mediated electroweak baryogenesis
We investigate the impact of the tau and bottom Yukawa couplings on the
transport dynamics for electroweak baryogenesis in supersymmetric extensions of
the Standard Model. Although it has generally been assumed in the literature
that all Yukawa interactions except those involving the top quark are
negligible, we find that the tau and bottom Yukawa interaction rates are too
fast to be neglected. We identify an illustrative "lepton-mediated electroweak
baryogenesis" scenario in which the baryon asymmetry is induced mainly through
the presence of a left-handed leptonic charge. We derive analytic formulae for
the computation of the baryon asymmetry that, in light of these effects, are
qualitatively different from those in the established literature. In this
scenario, for fixed CP-violating phases, the baryon asymmetry has opposite sign
compared to that calculated using established formulae.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figure
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