16,997 research outputs found
Self-similar solutions of semilinear wave equations with a focusing nonlinearity
We prove that in three space dimensions a nonlinear wave equation
with being an odd integer has a countable
family of regular spherically symmetric self-similar solutions.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, minor corrections to match the published versio
Zigzag transitions and nonequilibrium pattern formation in colloidal chains
Paramagnetic colloidal particles that are optically trapped in a linear array
can form a zigzag pattern when an external magnetic field induces repulsive
interparticle interactions. When the traps are abruptly turned off, the
particles form a nonequilibrium expanding pattern with a zigzag symmetry, even
when the strength of the magnetic interaction is weaker than that required to
break the linear symmetry of the equilibrium state. We show that the transition
to the equilibrium zigzag state is always potentially possible for purely
harmonic traps. For anharmonic traps that have a finite height, the equilibrium
zigzag state becomes unstable above a critical anharmonicity. A normal mode
analysis of the equilibrium line configuration demonstrates that increasing the
magnetic field leads to a hardening and softening of the spring constants in
the longitudinal and transverse directions, respectively. The mode that first
becomes unstable is the mode with the zigzag symmetry, which explains the
symmetry of nonequilibrium patterns. Our analytically tractable models help to
give further insight into the way that the interplay of such factors as the
length of the chain, hydrodynamic interactions, thermal fluctuations affect the
formation and evolution of the experimentally observed nonequilibrium patterns.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures; to appear in the Journal of Chemical Physic
Social Sensing of Floods in the UK
"Social sensing" is a form of crowd-sourcing that involves systematic
analysis of digital communications to detect real-world events. Here we
consider the use of social sensing for observing natural hazards. In
particular, we present a case study that uses data from a popular social media
platform (Twitter) to detect and locate flood events in the UK. In order to
improve data quality we apply a number of filters (timezone, simple text
filters and a naive Bayes `relevance' filter) to the data. We then use place
names in the user profile and message text to infer the location of the tweets.
These two steps remove most of the irrelevant tweets and yield orders of
magnitude more located tweets than we have by relying on geo-tagged data. We
demonstrate that high resolution social sensing of floods is feasible and we
can produce high-quality historical and real-time maps of floods using Twitter.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figure
Pattern formation in colloidal explosions
We study the non-equilibrium pattern formation that emerges when magnetically
repelling colloids, trapped by optical tweezers, are abruptly released, forming
colloidal explosions. For multiple colloids in a single trap we observe a
pattern of expanding concentric rings. For colloids individually trapped in a
line, we observe explosions with a zigzag pattern that persists even when
magnetic interactions are much weaker than those that break the linear symmetry
in equilibrium. Theory and computer simulations quantitatively describe these
phenomena both in and out of equilibrium. An analysis of the mode spectrum
allows us to accurately quantify the non-harmonic nature of the optical traps.
Colloidal explosions provide a new way to generate well-characterized
non-equilibrium behaviour in colloidal systems.Comment: New restructured version (supplementary material goes into main text,
no change of content), added journal reference and DOI information; 6 pages,
6 figures, published in Europhysics Letters (EPL
Transport of a colloidal particle driven across a temporally oscillating optical potential energy landscape
A colloidal particle is driven across a temporally oscillating one-dimensional optical potential energy landscape and its particle motion is analysed. Different modes of dynamic mode locking are observed and are confirmed with the use of phase portraits. The effect of the oscillation frequency on the mode locked step width is addressed and the results are discussed in light of a high-frequency theory and compared to simulations. Furthermore, the influence of the coupling between the particle and the optical landscape on mode locking is probed by increasing the maximum depth of the optical landscape. Stronger coupling is seen to increase the width of mode locked steps. Finally, transport across the temporally oscillating landscape is studied by measuring the effective diffusion coefficient of a mobile particle, which is seen to be highly sensitive to the driving velocity and mode locking
Perturbation theory in a pure exchange non-equilibrium economy
We develop a formalism to study linearized perturbations around the
equilibria of a pure exchange economy. With the use of mean field theory
techniques, we derive equations for the flow of products in an economy driven
by heterogeneous preferences and probabilistic interaction between agents. We
are able to show that if the economic agents have static preferences, which are
also homogeneous in any of the steady states, the final wealth distribution is
independent of the dynamics of the non-equilibrium theory. In particular, it is
completely determined in terms of the initial conditions, and it is independent
of the probability, and the network of interaction between agents. We show that
the main effect of the network is to determine the relaxation time via the
usual eigenvalue gap as in random walks on graphs.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure
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