34,504 research outputs found
Microscopic mechanisms of magnetization reversal
Two principal scenarios of magnetization reversal are considered. In the
first scenario all spins perform coherent motion and an excess of magnetic
energy directly goes to a nonmagnetic thermal bath. A general dynamic equation
is derived which includes a tensor damping term similar to the
Bloch-Bloembergen form but the magnetization magnitude remains constant for any
deviation from equilibrium. In the second reversal scenario, the absolute value
of the averaged sample magnetization is decreased by a rapid excitation of
nonlinear spin-wave resonances by uniform magnetization precession. We have
developed an analytic k-space micromagnetic approach that describes this entire
reversal process in an ultra-thin soft ferromagnetic film for up to 90^{o}
deviation from equilibrium. Conditions for the occurrence of the two scenarios
are discussed
Active mechanics reveal molecular-scale force kinetics in living oocytes
Active diffusion of intracellular components is emerging as an important
process in cell biology. This process is mediated by complex assemblies of
molecular motors and cytoskeletal filaments that drive force generation in the
cytoplasm and facilitate enhanced motion. The kinetics of molecular motors have
been precisely characterized in-vitro by single molecule approaches, however,
their in-vivo behavior remains elusive. Here, we study the active diffusion of
vesicles in mouse oocytes, where this process plays a key role in nuclear
positioning during development, and combine an experimental and theoretical
framework to extract molecular-scale force kinetics (force, power-stroke, and
velocity) of the in-vivo active process. Assuming a single dominant process, we
find that the nonequilibrium activity induces rapid kicks of duration 300 s resulting in an average force of 0.4 pN on vesicles
in in-vivo oocytes, remarkably similar to the kinetics of in-vitro myosin-V.
Our results reveal that measuring in-vivo active fluctuations allows extraction
of the molecular-scale activity in agreement with single-molecule studies and
demonstrates a mesoscopic framework to access force kinetics.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, see ancillary files for Supplementary Materials,
* equally contributing author
Nonlinear mechanisms in passive microwave devices
Premi extraordinari doctorat curs 2010-2011, à mbit d’Enginyeria de les TICThe telecommunications industry follows a tendency towards smaller devices, higher power and higher frequency, which imply an increase on the complexity of the electronics involved. Moreover, there is a need for extended capabilities like frequency tunable devices, ultra-low losses or high power handling, which make use of advanced materials for these purposes. In addition, increasingly demanding communication standards and regulations push the limits of the acceptable performance degrading indicators. This is the case of nonlinearities, whose effects, like increased Adjacent Channel Power Ratio (ACPR), harmonics, or intermodulation distortion among others, are being included in the performance requirements, as maximum tolerable levels.
In this context, proper modeling of the devices at the design stage is of crucial importance in predicting not only the device performance but also the global system indicators and to make sure that the requirements are fulfilled. In accordance with that, this work proposes the necessary steps for circuit models implementation of different passive microwave devices, from the linear and nonlinear measurements to the simulations to validate them. Bulk acoustic wave resonators and transmission lines made of high temperature superconductors, ferroelectrics or regular metals and dielectrics are the subject of this work. Both phenomenological and physical approaches are considered and circuit models are proposed and compared with measurements. The nonlinear observables, being harmonics, intermodulation distortion, and saturation or detuning, are properly related to the material properties that originate them. The obtained models can be used in circuit simulators to predict the performance of these microwave devices under complex modulated signals, or even be used to predict their performance when integrated into more complex systems. A key step to achieve this goal is an accurate characterization of materials and devices, which is faced by making use of advanced measurement techniques. Therefore, considerations on special measurement setups are being made along this thesis.Award-winningPostprint (published version
Dynamical strategies for obstacle avoidance during Dictyostelium discoideum aggregation: a Multi-agent system model
Chemotaxis, the movement of an organism in response to chemical stimuli, is a
typical feature of many microbiological systems. In particular, the social
amoeba \textit{Disctyostelium discoideum} is widely used as a model organism,
but it is not still clear how it behaves in heterogeneous environments. A few
models focusing on mechanical features have already addressed the question;
however, we suggest that phenomenological models focusing on the population
dynamics may provide new meaningful data. Consequently, by means of a specific
Multi-agent system model, we study the dynamical features emerging from complex
social interactions among individuals belonging to amoeba colonies.\\ After
defining an appropriate metric to quantitatively estimate the gathering
process, we find that: a) obstacles play the role of local topological
perturbation, as they alter the flux of chemical signals; b) physical obstacles
(blocking the cellular motion and the chemical flux) and purely chemical
obstacles (only interfering with chemical flux) elicit similar dynamical
behaviors; c) a minimal program for robustly gathering simulated cells does not
involve mechanisms for obstacle sensing and avoidance; d) fluctuations of the
dynamics concur in preventing multiple stable clusters. Comparing those
findings with previous results, we speculate about the fact that chemotactic
cells can avoid obstacles by simply following the altered chemical gradient.
Social interactions are sufficient to guarantee the aggregation of the whole
colony past numerous obstacles
Viscoplasticity: A thermodynamic formulation
A thermodynamic foundation using the concept of internal state variables is given for a general theory of viscoplasticity, as it applies to initially isotropic materials. Three fundamental internal state variables are admitted. They are: a tensor valued back stress for kinematic effects, and the scalar valued drag and yield strengths for isotropic effects. All three are considered to phenomenologically evolve according to competitive processes between strain hardening, strain induced dynamic recovery, and time induced static recovery. Within this phenomenological framework, a thermodynamically admissible set of evolution equations is put forth. This theory allows each of the three fundamental internal variables to be composed as a sum of independently evolving constituents
Core-Core Dynamics in Spin Vortex Pairs
We investigate magnetic nano-pillars, in which two thin ferromagnetic
nanoparticles are separated by a nanometer thin nonmagnetic spacer and can be
set into stable spin vortex-pair configurations. The 16 ground states of the
vortex-pair system are characterized by parallel or antiparallel chirality and
parallel or antiparallel core-core alignment. We detect and differentiate these
individual vortex-pair states experimentally and analyze their dynamics
analytically and numerically. Of particular interest is the limit of strong
core-core coupling, which we find can dominate the spin dynamics in the system.
We observe that the 0.2 GHz gyrational resonance modes of the individual
vortices are replaced with 2-6 GHz range collective rotational and vibrational
core-core resonances in the configurations where the cores form a bound pair.
These results demonstrate new opportunities in producing and manipulating spin
states on the nanoscale and may prove useful for new types of ultra-dense
storage devices where the information is stored as multiple vortex-core
configurations
Cytoskeleton and Cell Motility
The present article is an invited contribution to the Encyclopedia of
Complexity and System Science, Robert A. Meyers Ed., Springer New York (2009).
It is a review of the biophysical mechanisms that underly cell motility. It
mainly focuses on the eukaryotic cytoskeleton and cell-motility mechanisms.
Bacterial motility as well as the composition of the prokaryotic cytoskeleton
is only briefly mentioned. The article is organized as follows. In Section III,
I first present an overview of the diversity of cellular motility mechanisms,
which might at first glance be categorized into two different types of
behaviors, namely "swimming" and "crawling". Intracellular transport, mitosis -
or cell division - as well as other extensions of cell motility that rely on
the same essential machinery are briefly sketched. In Section IV, I introduce
the molecular machinery that underlies cell motility - the cytoskeleton - as
well as its interactions with the external environment of the cell and its main
regulatory pathways. Sections IV D to IV F are more detailed in their
biochemical presentations; readers primarily interested in the theoretical
modeling of cell motility might want to skip these sections in a first reading.
I then describe the motility mechanisms that rely essentially on
polymerization-depolymerization dynamics of cytoskeleton filaments in Section
V, and the ones that rely essentially on the activity of motor proteins in
Section VI. Finally, Section VII is devoted to the description of the
integrated approaches that have been developed recently to try to understand
the cooperative phenomena that underly self-organization of the cell
cytoskeleton as a whole.Comment: 31 pages, 16 figures, 295 reference
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