Capillarity-Driven Flows at the Continuum Limit

We experimentally investigate the dynamics of capillary-driven flows at the nanoscale, using an original platform that combines nanoscale pores and microfluidic features. Our results show a coherent picture across multiple experiments including imbibition, poroelastic transient flows, and a drying-based method that we introduce. In particular, we exploit extreme drying stresses - up to 100 MPa of tension - to drive nanoflows and provide quantitative tests of continuum theories of fluid mechanics and thermodynamics (e.g. Kelvin-Laplace equation) across an unprecedented range. We isolate the breakdown of continuum as a negative slip length of molecular dimension.Comment: 5 pages; 4 figure

Symmetry breaking and restoration for interacting scalar and gauge fields in Lifshitz type theories

We consider the one-loop effective potential at zero and finite temperature in field theories with anisotropic space-time scaling, with critical exponent $z=2$, including both scalar and gauge fields. Depending on the relative strength of the coupling constants for the gauge and scalar interactions, we find that there is a symmetry breaking term induced at one-loop at zero temperature and we find symmetry restoration through a first-order phase transition at high temperature.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, final version accepted in Phys. Let