645 research outputs found
Coupling between static friction force and torque
We show that the static friction force which must be overcome to render a
sticking contact sliding is reduced if an external torque is also exerted. As a
test system we study a planar disk lying on horizontal flat surface. We perform
experiments and compare with analytical results to find that the coupling
between static friction force and torque is nontrivial: It is not determined by
the Coulomb friction laws alone, instead it depends on the microscopic details
of friction. Hence, we conclude that the macroscopic experiment presented here
reveals details about the microscopic processes lying behind friction.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, revte
Transverse Meissner Physics of Planar Superconductors with Columnar Pins
The statistical mechanics of thermally excited vortex lines with columnar
defects can be mapped onto the physics of interacting quantum particles with
quenched random disorder in one less dimension. The destruction of the Bose
glass phase in Type II superconductors, when the external magnetic field is
tilted sufficiently far from the column direction, is described by a poorly
understood non-Hermitian quantum phase transition. We present here exact
results for this transition in (1+1)-dimensions, obtained by mapping the
problem in the hard core limit onto one-dimensional fermions described by a
non-Hermitian tight binding model. Both site randomness and the relatively
unexplored case of bond randomness are considered. Analysis near the mobility
edge and near the band center in the latter case is facilitated by a real space
renormalization group procedure used previously for Hermitian quantum problems
with quenched randomness in one dimension.Comment: 23 pages, 22 figure
Hopping Conduction and Bacteria: Transport in Disordered Reaction-Diffusion Systems
We report some basic results regarding transport in disordered
reaction-diffusion systems with birth (A->2A), death (A->0), and binary
competition (2A->A) processes. We consider a model in which the growth process
is only allowed to take place in certain areas--"oases"--while the rest of
space--the "desert"--is hostile to growth. In the limit of low oasis density,
transport is mediated through rare "hopping" events, necessitating the
inclusion of discreteness effects in the model. By first considering transport
between two oases, we are able to derive an approximate expression for the
average time taken for a population to traverse a disordered medium.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Association study of suicidal behavior and affective disorders with a genetic polymorphism in ABCG1, a positional candidate on chromosome 21q22.3
The gene that codes for the ABC transporter ABCG1 is located in a chromosomal susceptibility region (21q22.3) for affective disorders. Genetic variations in ABCG1 have been associated with affective disorders in Japanese males. In this study, we investigated the distribution of a G2457A polymorphism in patients with affective disorders, suicide attempters with various psychiatric diagnoses and healthy subjects, We initially found a trend towards a modest association with affective disorders in males (p = 0.046 for allele frequencies and p = 0.046 for AA versus GG). We conducted a replication study with independent patients and controls, There was no association with affective disorders, either in the replication or in the combined group, Furthermore, we found no association with suicidal behavior, These findings do not support the hypothesis that ABCG1 is a susceptibility gene for affective disorders or suicidal behavior. Copyright (C) 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel
Crackling Noise, Power Spectra and Disorder Induced Critical Scaling
Crackling noise is observed in many disordered non-equilibrium systems in
response to slowly changing external conditions. Examples range from Barkhausen
noise in magnets to acoustic emission in martensites to earthquakes. Using the
non-equilibrium random field Ising model, we derive universal scaling
predictions for the dependence of the associated power spectra on the disorder
and field sweep rate, near an underlying disorder-induced non-equilibrium
critical point. Our theory applies to certain systems in which the crackling
noise results from avalanche-like response to a (slowly) increasing external
driving force, and is characterized by a broad power law scaling regime of the
power spectra. We compute the critical exponents and discuss the relevance of
the results to experiments.Comment: 27 Latex Pages, 14 eps figure
Continuous Wavelets on Compact Manifolds
Let be a smooth compact oriented Riemannian manifold, and let
be the Laplace-Beltrami operator on . Say 0 \neq f
\in \mathcal{S}(\RR^+), and that . For , let
denote the kernel of . We show that is
well-localized near the diagonal, in the sense that it satisfies estimates akin
to those satisfied by the kernel of the convolution operator on
\RR^n. We define continuous -wavelets on , in such a
manner that satisfies this definition, because of its localization
near the diagonal. Continuous -wavelets on are analogous to
continuous wavelets on \RR^n in \mathcal{S}(\RR^n). In particular, we are
able to characterize the Hlder continuous functions on by
the size of their continuous wavelet transforms, for
Hlder exponents strictly between 0 and 1. If is the torus
\TT^2 or the sphere , and (the ``Mexican hat''
situation), we obtain two explicit approximate formulas for , one to be
used when is large, and one to be used when is small
Yang-Lee zeros for a nonequilibrium phase transition
Equilibrium systems which exhibit a phase transition can be studied by
investigating the complex zeros of the partition function. This method,
pioneered by Yang and Lee, has been widely used in equilibrium statistical
physics. We show that an analogous treatment is possible for a nonequilibrium
phase transition into an absorbing state. By investigating the complex zeros of
the survival probability of directed percolation processes we demonstrate that
the zeros provide information about universal properties. Moreover we identify
certain non-trivial points where the survival probability for bond percolation
can be computed exactly.Comment: LaTeX, IOP-style, 13 pages, 10 eps figure
- …