2,176 research outputs found
Brownian forces in sheared granular matter
We present results from a series of experiments on a granular medium sheared
in a Couette geometry and show that their statistical properties can be
computed in a quantitative way from the assumption that the resultant from the
set of forces acting in the system performs a Brownian motion. The same
assumption has been utilised, with success, to describe other phenomena, such
as the Barkhausen effect in ferromagnets, and so the scheme suggests itself as
a more general description of a wider class of driven instabilities.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures and 1 tabl
Correlations and pair emission in the escape dynamics of ions from one-dimensional traps
We explore the non-equilibrium escape dynamics of long-range interacting ions
in one-dimensional traps. The phase space of the few ion setup and its impact
on the escape properties are studied. As a main result we show that an
instantaneous reduction of the trap's potential depth leads to the synchronized
emission of a sequence of ion pairs if the initial configurations are close to
the crystalline ionic configuration. The corresponding time-intervals of the
consecutive pair emission as well as the number of emitted pairs can be tuned
by changing the final trap depth. Correlations between the escape times and
kinetic energies of the ions are observed and analyzed.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figure
Effects of the centrifugal force on stellar dynamo simulations
The centrifugal force is often omitted in simulations of stellar convection.
This force might be important in rapidly rotating stars such as solar analogues
due to its scaling, where is the rotation rate of the star.
We study the effects of the centrifugal force in a set of 21 semi-global
stellar dynamo simulations with varying rotation rates. Among these, we include
three control runs aimed at distinguishing the effects of the centrifugal force
from the nonlinear evolution of the solutions. We solve the 3D MHD equations
with the Pencil Code in a solar-like convective zone in a spherical wedge setup
with a azimuthal extent. We decompose the magnetic field in spherical
harmonics and study the migration of azimuthal dynamo waves (ADWs), energy of
different large-scale magnetic modes, and differential rotation. In the regime
with the lowest rotation rates, , where
is the rotation rate of the Sun, we see no marked changes in
neither the differential rotation nor the magnetic field properties. For
intermediate rotation with we identify an increase
of the differential rotation as a function of centrifugal force. The
axisymmetric magnetic energy tends to decrease with centrifugal force while the
non-axisymmetric one increases. The ADWs are also affected, especially the
propagation direction. In the most rapidly rotating set with
, these changes are more pronounced and in one case the
propagation direction of the ADW changes from prograde to retrograde. Control
runs suggest that the results are a consequence of the centrifugal force and
not due to the details of the initial conditions or the history of the run. We
find that the differential rotation and properties of the ADWs change as a
function of the centrifugal force only when rotation is rapid enough.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, submitted to A&
Shear stress fluctuations in the granular liquid and solid phases
We report on experimentally observed shear stress fluctuations in both
granular solid and fluid states, showing that they are non-Gaussian at low
shear rates, reflecting the predominance of correlated structures (force
chains) in the solidlike phase, which also exhibit finite rigidity to shear.
Peaks in the rigidity and the stress distribution's skewness indicate that a
change to the force-bearing mechanism occurs at the transition to fluid
behaviour, which, it is shown, can be predicted from the behaviour of the
stress at lower shear rates. In the fluid state stress is Gaussian distributed,
suggesting that the central limit theorem holds. The fibre bundle model with
random load sharing effectively reproduces the stress distribution at the yield
point and also exhibits the exponential stress distribution anticipated from
extant work on stress propagation in granular materials.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, latex. Replacement adds journal reference and
addresses referee comment
The filamentation instability driven by warm electron beams: Statistics and electric field generation
The filamentation instability of counterpropagating symmetric beams of
electrons is examined with 1D and 2D particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, which
are oriented orthogonally to the beam velocity vector. The beams are uniform,
warm and their relative speed is mildly relativistic. The dynamics of the
filaments is examined in 2D and it is confirmed that their characteristic size
increases linearly in time. Currents orthogonal to the beam velocity vector are
driven through the magnetic and electric fields in the simulation plane. The
fields are tied to the filament boundaries and the scale size of the
flow-aligned and the perpendicular currents are thus equal. It is confirmed
that the electrostatic and the magnetic forces are equally important, when the
filamentation instability saturates in 1D. Their balance is apparently the
saturation mechanism of the filamentation instability for our initial
conditions. The electric force is relatively weaker but not negligible in the
2D simulation, where the electron temperature is set higher to reduce the
computational cost. The magnetic pressure gradient is the principal source of
the electrostatic field, when and after the instability saturates in the 1D
simulation and in the 2D simulation.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted by the Plasma Physics and Controlled
Fusion (Special Issue EPS 2009
Fredkin Gates for Finite-valued Reversible and Conservative Logics
The basic principles and results of Conservative Logic introduced by Fredkin
and Toffoli on the basis of a seminal paper of Landauer are extended to
d-valued logics, with a special attention to three-valued logics. Different
approaches to d-valued logics are examined in order to determine some possible
universal sets of logic primitives. In particular, we consider the typical
connectives of Lukasiewicz and Godel logics, as well as Chang's MV-algebras. As
a result, some possible three-valued and d-valued universal gates are described
which realize a functionally complete set of fundamental connectives.Comment: 57 pages, 10 figures, 16 tables, 2 diagram
Clustering and Non-Gaussian Behavior in Granular Matter
We investigate the properties of a model of granular matter consisting of
Brownian particles on a line subject to inelastic mutual collisions. This model
displays a genuine thermodynamic limit for the mean values of the energy and
the energy dissipation. When the typical relaxation time associated with
the Brownian process is small compared with the mean collision time
the spatial density is nearly homogeneous and the velocity probability
distribution is gaussian. In the opposite limit one has
strong spatial clustering, with a fractal distribution of particles, and the
velocity probability distribution strongly deviates from the gaussian one.Comment: 4 pages including 3 eps figures, LaTex, added references, corrected
typos, minimally changed contents and abstract, to published in
Phys.Rev.Lett. (tentatively on 28th of October, 1998
A perturbative approach to the Bak-Sneppen Model
We study the Bak-Sneppen model in the probabilistic framework of the Run Time
Statistics (RTS). This model has attracted a large interest for its simplicity
being a prototype for the whole class of models showing Self-Organized
Criticality. The dynamics is characterized by a self-organization of almost all
the species fitnesses above a non-trivial threshold value, and by a lack of
spatial and temporal characteristic scales. This results in {\em avalanches} of
activity power law distributed. In this letter we use the RTS approach to
compute the value of , the value of the avalanche exponent and the
asymptotic distribution of minimal fitnesses.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to be published on Physical Review Letter
Thermal Re-emission Model
Starting from a continuum description, we study the non-equilibrium
roughening of a thermal re-emission model for etching in one and two spatial
dimensions. Using standard analytical techniques, we map our problem to a
generalized version of an earlier non-local KPZ (Kardar-Parisi-Zhang) model. In
2+1 dimensions, the values of the roughness and the dynamic exponents
calculated from our theory go like and in 1+1
dimensions, the exponents resemble the KPZ values for low vapor pressure,
supporting experimental results. Interestingly, Galilean invariance is
maintained althrough.Comment: 4 pages, minor textual corrections and typos, accepted in Physical
Review B (rapid
Signature of effective mass in crackling noise asymmetry
Crackling noise is a common feature in many dynamic systems [1-9], the most
familiar instance of which is the sound made by a sheet of paper when crumpled
into a ball. Although seemingly random, this noise contains fundamental
information about the properties of the system in which it occurs. One
potential source of such information lies in the asymmetric shape of noise
pulses emitted by a diverse range of noisy systems [8-12], but the cause of
this asymmetry has lacked explanation [1]. Here we show that the leftward
asymmetry observed in the Barkhausen effect [2] - the noise generated by the
jerky motion of domain walls as they interact with impurities in a soft magnet
- is a direct consequence of a magnetic domain wall's negative effective mass.
As well as providing a means of determining domain wall effective mass from a
magnet's Barkhausen noise our work suggests an inertial explanation for the
origin of avalanche asymmetries in crackling noise phenomena more generally.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Nature Physic
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