Evidence of discrete scale invariance in DLA and time-to-failure by canonical averaging

Discrete scale invariance, which corresponds to a partial breaking of the scaling symmetry, is reflected in the existence of a hierarchy of characteristic scales l0, c l0, c^2 l0,... where c is a preferred scaling ratio and l0 a microscopic cut-off. Signatures of discrete scale invariance have recently been found in a variety of systems ranging from rupture, earthquakes, Laplacian growth phenomena, ``animals'' in percolation to financial market crashes. We believe it to be a quite general, albeit subtle phenomenon. Indeed, the practical problem in uncovering an underlying discrete scale invariance is that standard ensemble averaging procedures destroy it as if it was pure noise. This is due to the fact, that while c only depends on the underlying physics, l0 on the contrary is realisation-dependent. Here, we adapt and implement a novel so-called ``canonical'' averaging scheme which re-sets the l0 of different realizations to approximately the same value. The method is based on the determination of a realization-dependent effective critical point obtained from, e.g., a maximum susceptibility criterion. We demonstrate the method on diffusion limited aggregation and a model of rupture.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, in press in Int. J. Mod. Phys.

Large-wavelength instabilities in free-surface Hartmann flow at low magnetic Prandtl numbers

We study the linear stability of the flow of a viscous electrically conducting capillary fluid on a planar fixed plate in the presence of gravity and a uniform magnetic field. We first confirm that the Squire transformation for MHD is compatible with the stress and insulating boundary conditions at the free surface, but argue that unless the flow is driven at fixed Galilei and capillary numbers, the critical mode is not necessarily two-dimensional. We then investigate numerically how a flow-normal magnetic field, and the associated Hartmann steady state, affect the soft and hard instability modes of free surface flow, working in the low magnetic Prandtl number regime of laboratory fluids. Because it is a critical layer instability, the hard mode is found to exhibit similar behaviour to the even unstable mode in channel Hartmann flow, in terms of both the weak influence of Pm on its neutral stability curve, and the dependence of its critical Reynolds number Re_c on the Hartmann number Ha. In contrast, the structure of the soft mode's growth rate contours in the (Re, alpha) plane, where alpha is the wavenumber, differs markedly between problems with small, but nonzero, Pm, and their counterparts in the inductionless limit. As derived from large wavelength approximations, and confirmed numerically, the soft mode's critical Reynolds number grows exponentially with Ha in inductionless problems. However, when Pm is nonzero the Lorentz force originating from the steady state current leads to a modification of Re_c(Ha) to either a sublinearly increasing, or decreasing function of Ha, respectively for problems with insulating and conducting walls. In the former, we also observe pairs of Alfven waves, the upstream propagating wave undergoing an instability at large Alfven numbers.Comment: 58 pages, 16 figure

Ground-state properties of one-dimensional anyon gases

We investigate the ground state of the one-dimensional interacting anyonic system based on the exact Bethe ansatz solution for arbitrary coupling constant ($0\leq c\leq \infty$) and statistics parameter ($0\leq \kappa \leq \pi$). It is shown that the density of state in quasi-momentum $k$ space and the ground state energy are determined by the renormalized coupling constant $c'$. The effect induced by the statistics parameter $\kappa$ exhibits in the momentum distribution in two aspects: Besides the effect of renormalized coupling, the anyonic statistics results in the nonsymmetric momentum distribution when the statistics parameter $\kappa$ deviates from 0 (Bose statistics) and $\pi$ (Fermi statistics) for any coupling constant $c$. The momentum distribution evolves from a Bose distribution to a Fermi one as $\kappa$ varies from 0 to $\pi$. The asymmetric momentum distribution comes from the contribution of the imaginary part of the non-diagonal element of reduced density matrix, which is an odd function of $\kappa$. The peak at positive momentum will shift to negative momentum if $\kappa$ is negative.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, published version in Phys. Rev.

Energetics and dynamics of simple impulsive solar flares

Flare energetics and dynamics were studied using observations of simple impulsive spike bursts. A large, homogeneous set of events was selected to enable the most definite tests possible of competing flare models, in the absence of spatially resolved observations. The emission mechanisms and specific flare models that were considered in this investigation are described, and the derivations of the parameters that were tested are presented. Results of the correlation analysis between soft and hard X-ray energetics are also presented. The ion conduction front model and tests of that model with the well-observed spike bursts are described. Finally, conclusions drawn from this investigation and suggestions for future studies are discussed

Transport in a highly asymmetric binary fluid mixture

We present molecular dynamics calculations of the thermal conductivity and viscosities of a model colloidal suspension with colloidal particles roughly one order of magnitude larger than the suspending liquid molecules. The results are compared with estimates based on the Enskog transport theory and effective medium theories (EMT) for thermal and viscous transport. We find, in particular, that EMT remains well applicable for predicting both the shear viscosity and thermal conductivity of such suspensions when the colloidal particles have a ``typical'' mass, i.e. much larger than the liquid molecules. Very light colloidal particles on the other hand yield higher thermal conductivities, in disagreement with EMT. We also discuss the consequences of these results to some proposed mechanisms for thermal conduction in nanocolloidal suspensions.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Physical Review E (2007

Locating the source of projectile fluid droplets

The ill-posed projectile problem of finding the source height from spattered droplets of viscous fluid is a longstanding obstacle to accident reconstruction and crime scene analysis. It is widely known how to infer the impact angle of droplets on a surface from the elongation of their impact profiles. However, the lack of velocity information makes finding the height of the origin from the impact position and angle of individual drops not possible. From aggregate statistics of the spatter and basic equations of projectile motion, we introduce a reciprocal correlation plot that is effective when the polar launch angle is concentrated in a narrow range. The vertical coordinate depends on the orientation of the spattered surface, and equals the tangent of the impact angle for a level surface. When the horizontal plot coordinate is twice the reciprocal of the impact distance, we can infer the source height as the slope of the data points in the reciprocal correlation plot. If the distribution of launch angles is not narrow, failure of the method is evident in the lack of linear correlation. We perform a number of experimental trials, as well as numerical calculations and show that the height estimate is insensitive to aerodynamic drag. Besides its possible relevance for crime investigation, reciprocal-plot analysis of spatter may find application to volcanism and other topics and is most immediately applicable for undergraduate science and engineering students in the context of crime-scene analysis.Comment: To appear in the American Journal of Physics (ms 23338). Improved readability and organization in this versio

Microscale swimming: The molecular dynamics approach

The self-propelled motion of microscopic bodies immersed in a fluid medium is studied using molecular dynamics simulation. The advantage of the atomistic approach is that the detailed level of description allows complete freedom in specifying the swimmer design and its coupling with the surrounding fluid. A series of two-dimensional swimming bodies employing a variety of propulsion mechanisms -- motivated by biological and microrobotic designs -- is investigated, including the use of moving limbs, changing body shapes and fluid jets. The swimming efficiency and the nature of the induced, time-dependent flow fields are found to differ widely among body designs and propulsion mechanisms.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures (minor changes to text

One-dimensional anyons with competing δ\delta-function and derivative δ\delta-function potentials

We propose an exactly solvable model of one-dimensional anyons with competing $\delta$-function and derivative $\delta$-function interaction potentials. The Bethe ansatz equations are derived in terms of the $N$-particle sector for the quantum anyonic field model of the generalized derivative nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger equation. This more general anyon model exhibits richer physics than that of the recently studied one-dimensional model of $\delta$-function interacting anyons. We show that the anyonic signature is inextricably related to the velocities of the colliding particles and the pairwise dynamical interaction between particles.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, minor changes, references update

Mixing by polymers: experimental test of decay regime of mixing

By using high molecular weight fluorescent passive tracers with different diffusion coefficients and by changing the fluid velocity we study dependence of a characteristic mixing length on the Peclet number, $Pe$, which controls the mixing efficiency. The mixing length is found to be related to $Pe$ by a power law, $L_{mix}\propto Pe^{0.26\pm 0.01}$, and increases faster than expected for an unbounded chaotic flow. Role of the boundaries in the mixing length abnormal growth is clarified. The experimental findings are in a good quantitative agreement with the recent theoretical predictions.Comment: 4 pages,5 figures. accepted for publication in PR

Exact solution and surface critical behaviour of open cyclic SOS lattice models

We consider the $L$-state cyclic solid-on-solid lattice models under a class of open boundary conditions. The integrable boundary face weights are obtained by solving the reflection equations. Functional relations for the fused transfer matrices are presented for both periodic and open boundary conditions. The eigen-spectra of the unfused transfer matrix is obtained from the functional relations using the analytic Bethe ansatz. For a special case of crossing parameter $\lambda=\pi/L$, the finite-size corrections to the eigen-spectra of the critical models are obtained, from which the corresponding conformal dimensions follow. The calculation of the surface free energy away from criticality yields two surface specific heat exponents, $\alpha_s=2-L/2\ell$ and $\alpha_1=1-L/\ell$, where $\ell=1,2,\cdots,L-1$ coprime to $L$. These results are in agreement with the scaling relations $\alpha_s=\alpha_b+\nu$ and $\alpha_1=\alpha_b-1$.Comment: 13 pages, LaTeX, to appear in J. Phys.