747 research outputs found
Stability of pulse-like earthquake ruptures
Pulse-like ruptures arise spontaneously in many elastodynamic rupture
simulations and seem to be the dominant rupture mode along crustal faults.
Pulse-like ruptures propagating under steady-state conditions can be
efficiently analysed theoretically, but it remains unclear how they can arise
and how they evolve if perturbed. Using thermal pressurisation as a
representative constitutive law, we conduct elastodynamic simulations of
pulse-like ruptures and determine the spatio-temporal evolution of slip, slip
rate and pulse width perturbations induced by infinitesimal perturbations in
background stress. These simulations indicate that steady-state pulses driven
by thermal pressurisation are unstable. If the initial stress perturbation is
negative, ruptures stop; conversely, if the perturbation is positive, ruptures
grow and transition to either self-similar pulses (at low background stress) or
expanding cracks (at elevated background stress). Based on a dynamic
dislocation model, we develop an elastodynamic equation of motion for slip
pulses, and demonstrate that steady-state slip pulses are unstable if their
accrued slip is a decreasing function of the uniform background stress
. This condition is satisfied by slip pulses driven by thermal
pressurisation. The equation of motion also predicts quantitatively the growth
rate of perturbations, and provides a generic tool to analyse the propagation
of slip pulses. The unstable character of steady-state slip pulses implies that
this rupture mode is a key one determining the minimum stress conditions for
sustainable ruptures along faults, i.e., their ``strength''. Furthermore, slip
pulse instabilities can produce a remarkable complexity of rupture dynamics,
even under uniform background stress conditions and material properties
Number of Common Sites Visited by N Random Walkers
We compute analytically the mean number of common sites, W_N(t), visited by N
independent random walkers each of length t and all starting at the origin at
t=0 in d dimensions. We show that in the (N-d) plane, there are three distinct
regimes for the asymptotic large t growth of W_N(t). These three regimes are
separated by two critical lines d=2 and d=d_c(N)=2N/(N-1) in the (N-d) plane.
For d<2, W_N(t)\sim t^{d/2} for large t (the N dependence is only in the
prefactor). For 2<d<d_c(N), W_N(t)\sim t^{\nu} where the exponent \nu=
N-d(N-1)/2 varies with N and d. For d>d_c(N), W_N(t) approaches a constant as
t\to \infty. Exactly at the critical dimensions there are logaritmic
corrections: for d=2, we get W_N(t)\sim t/[\ln t]^N, while for d=d_c(N),
W_N(t)\sim \ln t for large t. Our analytical predictions are verified in
numerical simulations.Comment: 5 pages, 3 .eps figures include
Direct vs. indirect optical recombination in Ge films grown on Si substrates
The optical emission spectra from Ge films on Si are markedly different from
their bulk Ge counterparts. Whereas bulk Ge emission is dominated by the
material's indirect gap, the photoluminescence signal from Ge films is mainly
associated with its direct band gap. Using a new class of Ge-on-Si films grown
by a recently introduced CVD approach, we study the direct and indirect
photoluminescence from intrinsic and doped samples and we conclude that the
origin of the discrepancy is the lack of self-absorption in thin Ge films
combined with a deviation from quasi-equilibrium conditions in the conduction
band. The latter is confirmed by a simple model suggesting that the deviation
from quasi-equilibrium is caused by the much shorter recombination lifetime in
the films relative to bulk Ge
Deep Physics-aware Inference of Cloth Deformation for Monocular Human Performance Capture
Recent monocular human performance capture approaches have shown compelling dense tracking results of the full body from a single RGB camera. However, existing methods either do not estimate clothing at all or model cloth deformation with simple geometric priors instead of taking into account the underlying physical principles. This leads to noticeable artifacts in their reconstructions, such as baked-in wrinkles, implausible deformations that seemingly defy gravity, and intersections between cloth and body. To address these problems, we propose a person-specific, learning-based method that integrates a finite element-based simulation layer into the training process to provide for the first time physics supervision in the context of weakly-supervised deep monocular human performance capture. We show how integrating physics into the training process improves the learned cloth deformations, allows modeling clothing as a separate piece of geometry, and largely reduces cloth-body intersections. Relying only on weak 2D multi-view supervision during training, our approach leads to a significant improvement over current state-of-the-art methods and is thus a clear step towards realistic monocular capture of the entire deforming surface of a clothed human
Adiabaticity and localization in one-dimensional incommensurate lattices
We experimentally investigate the role of localization on the adiabaticity of
loading a Bose-Einstein condensate into a one-dimensional optical potential
comprised of a shallow primary lattice plus one or two perturbing lattice(s) of
incommensurate period. We find that even a very weak perturbation causes
dramatic changes in the momentum distribution and makes adiabatic loading of
the combined lattice much more difficult than for a single period lattice. We
interpret our results using a band structure model and the one-dimensional
Gross-Pitaevskii equation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; v2: figures improved (particularly fig 3), some
refs. added, clarifications in discussion, fixed typo
Indeterminacy of Spatiotemporal Cardiac Alternans
Cardiac alternans, a beat-to-beat alternation in action potential duration
(at the cellular level) or in ECG morphology (at the whole heart level), is a
marker of ventricular fibrillation, a fatal heart rhythm that kills hundreds of
thousands of people in the US each year. Investigating cardiac alternans may
lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias and
eventually better algorithms for the prediction and prevention of such dreadful
diseases. In paced cardiac tissue, alternans develops under increasingly
shorter pacing period. Existing experimental and theoretical studies adopt the
assumption that alternans in homogeneous cardiac tissue is exclusively
determined by the pacing period. In contrast, we find that, when calcium-driven
alternans develops in cardiac fibers, it may take different spatiotemporal
patterns depending on the pacing history. Because there coexist multiple
alternans solutions for a given pacing period, the alternans pattern on a fiber
becomes unpredictable. Using numerical simulation and theoretical analysis, we
show that the coexistence of multiple alternans patterns is induced by the
interaction between electrotonic coupling and an instability in calcium
cycling.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Diffusion with random distribution of static traps
The random walk problem is studied in two and three dimensions in the
presence of a random distribution of static traps. An efficient Monte Carlo
method, based on a mapping onto a polymer model, is used to measure the
survival probability P(c,t) as a function of the trap concentration c and the
time t. Theoretical arguments are presented, based on earlier work of Donsker
and Varadhan and of Rosenstock, why in two dimensions one expects a data
collapse if -ln[P(c,t)]/ln(t) is plotted as a function of (lambda
t)^{1/2}/ln(t) (with lambda=-ln(1-c)), whereas in three dimensions one expects
a data collapse if -t^{-1/3}ln[P(c,t)] is plotted as a function of
t^{2/3}lambda. These arguments are supported by the Monte Carlo results. Both
data collapses show a clear crossover from the early-time Rosenstock behavior
to Donsker-Varadhan behavior at long times.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure
Acoustic radiation controls friction: Evidence from a spring-block experiment
Brittle failures of materials and earthquakes generate acoustic/seismic waves
which lead to radiation damping feedbacks that should be introduced in the
dynamical equations of crack motion. We present direct experimental evidence of
the importance of this feedback on the acoustic noise spectrum of
well-controlled spring-block sliding experiments performed on a variety of
smooth surfaces. The full noise spectrum is quantitatively explained by a
simple noisy harmonic oscillator equation with a radiation damping force
proportional to the derivative of the acceleration, added to a standard viscous
term.Comment: 4 pages including 3 figures. Replaced with version accepted in PR
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