Fluid-solid transition in unsteady, homogeneous, granular shear flows

Discrete element numerical simulations of unsteady, homogeneous shear flows have been performed by instantly applying a constant shear rate to a random, static, isotropic assembly of identical, soft, frictional spheres at either zero or finite pressure by keeping constant the solid volume fraction until the steady state is reached. If the system is slowly sheared, or, equivalently, if the particles are sufficiently rigid, the granular material exhibits either large or small fluctuations in the evolving pressure, depending whether the average number of contacts per particle (coordination number) is less or larger than a critical value. The amplitude of the pressure fluctuations is rate-dependent when the coordination number is less than the critical and rate-independent otherwise, signatures of fluid-like and solid-like behaviour, respectively. The same critical coordination number has been previously found to represent the minimum value at which rate-independent components of the stresses develop in steady, simple shearing and the jamming transition in isotropic random packings. The observed complex behaviour of the measured pressure in the fluid-solid transition clearly suggests the need for incorporating in a nontrivial way the coordination number, the solid volume fraction, the particle stiffness and the intensity of the particle agitation in constitutive models for the onset and the arrest of granular flows.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures, submitted to Granular Matte

Nature of the vorticity in the G\"{o}del spacetime

The physical meaning of the vorticity of the matter content in G\"{o}del spacetime is analyzed in some detail. As we shall see, unlike the situation in general stationnary axially symmetric spacetimes (Lewis--Papapetrou), the vorticity in G\"{o}del spacetime is not associated to a circular flow of superenergy on the plane orthogonal to the vorticity vector. This fact might be at the origin of the strange behaviour of gyroscopes in such spacetime. The analysis emerging from the tilted version of G\"{o}del spacetime supports further this point of view. In order to tell apart the two situations (with and without circular flow of superenergy) we introduce two different definitions of vorticity, related to the presence (absence) of such a flow.Comment: Revtex 4, 5 pages. To appear in Phys. Rev. D. Typos corrected and references update

The spacetime outside a source of gravitational radiation: The axially symmetric null fluid

We carry out a study of the exterior of an axially and reflection symmetric source of gravitational radiation. The exterior of such a source is filled with a null fluid produced by the dissipative processes inherent to the emission of gravitational radiation, thereby representing a generalization of the Vaidya metric for axially and reflection symmetric spacetimes. The role of the vorticity, and its relationship with the presence of gravitational radiation is put in evidence. The spherically symmetric case (Vaidya) is, asymptotically, recovered within the context of the $1+3$ formalism.Comment: 11 pages Latex. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1609.02841. Typos corrected, to appear in Eur. Phys. J.

Nonlinear Shear-free Radiative Collapse

We study realistic models of relativistic radiating stars undergoing gravitational collapse which have vanishing Weyl tensor components. Previous investigations are generalised by retaining the inherent nonlinearity at the boundary. We transform the boundary condition to an Abel equation of the first kind. A variety of nonlinear solutions are generated all of which can be written explicitly. Several classes of infinite solutions exist.Comment: 13 pages, To appear in Math. Meth. Appl. Sc