Roughening Induced Deconstruction in (100) Facets of CsCl Type Crystals

The staggered 6-vertex model describes the competition between surface roughening and reconstruction in (100) facets of CsCl type crystals. Its phase diagram does not have the expected generic structure, due to the presence of a fully-packed loop-gas line. We prove that the reconstruction and roughening transitions cannot cross nor merge with this loop-gas line if these degrees of freedom interact weakly. However, our numerical finite size scaling analysis shows that the two critical lines merge along the loop-gas line, with strong coupling scaling properties. The central charge is much larger than 1.5 and roughening takes place at a surface roughness much larger than the conventional universal value. It seems that additional fluctuations become critical simultaneously.Comment: 31 pages, 9 figure

Negative correlation does not imply a tradeoff between growth and reproduction in California oaks

A tradeoff between growth and reproduction, often inferred from an inverse correlation between these two variables, is a fundamental paradigm of life-history evolution. Oak species provide a unique test of this relationship because different species mature acorns either in the year of pollination or in the year after pollination. This difference allows for an interspecific comparison testing whether the apparent tradeoff is causal or the result of confounding factors influencing growth and reproduction independently. Based on 13 years of data on five California oak species, we found significant negative correlations between radial growth and seed production in the three species that produce acorns the same year in which pollination occurs, but not in two species that mature acorns the year after pollination. Rainfall, which correlates positively with radial growth and correlates negatively with acorn production (based on the year of pollination), appears to be driving this pattern. We conclude that the observed negative correlations are not causal, but rather a consequence of growth and reproduction being dependent, in opposite ways, on environmental conditions. Thus, contrary to the current consensus, growth and reproduction in these species are apparently largely independent of each other. In contrast, tradeoffs between current and future reproduction appear to be much more important in the life-history evolution of these long-lived plants. We also conclude that a negative correlation does not necessarily imply a causal mechanism and should not be used as the only evidence supporting a tradeoff

Elevation, moisture and shade drive the functional and phylogenetic meadow communities’ assembly in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau

Despite a long history of alpine meadows studies, uncertainty remains about the importance of environmental factors in structuring their assembly. We examined the functional and phylogenetic structure of 170 alpine Tibetan meadow communities in relation to elevation, soil moisture and shade. Functional community structure was estimated with both communityweighted mean (CWM) trait values for specific leaf area (SLA), plant height and seed mass and functional diversity (Rao’s quadratic index) for their traits individually and in combination (multivariate functional diversity). We found that shade induced by woody plants significantly increased the phylogenetic diversity and functional diversity of SLA of co-occurring species, suggesting that woody plants behave as “ecosystem engineers” creating a different environment that allows the existence of shade tolerant species and thereby facilitates the coexistence of plant species with different light resource acquisition strategies. We also found evidence for a clear decrease in phylogenetic diversity, CWM and functional diversity related to plant height in the two extreme, both the dry and wet, soil moisture conditions. This indicates that both drought and excess moisture may act as environmental filters selecting species with close phylogenetic relationships and similar height. Moreover, we detected significant decreases in both CWM and functional diversity for seed mass along elevational gradients, suggesting that low net primary productivity (NPP) limits seed size. Finally, because of different individual trait responses to environmental factors, the multivariate functional diversity did not change across environmental gradients. This lack of multivariate response supports the hypothesis that multiple processes, such as environmental filtering, competition and facilitation, may operate simultaneously and exert opposing effects on community assembly along different niche (e.g., water use, light acquisition) axes, resulting in no overall functional community structure change. This contrast between individual and multivariate trait patterns highlights the importance of examining individual traits linked with different ecological processes to better understand the mechanisms of community assembly

Resisting bare life : civil solidarity and the hunt for illegalized migrants

While European governments have pursued illegalized migrants for decades, the techniques through which they do so have taken a more radical turn since 2015. Focusing on the particular case of Belgium, this paper documents how its Federal government has increasingly tried to “police” migrants into the European refugee regime, while migrants and citizens have continued to resist these efforts through a series of “political” actions. Drawing on ethnographic work with the Brussels‐based Citizen Platform for the Support of Refugees, I pursue two aims: first, I demonstrate how the Belgian state has consciously produced a humanitarian crisis as part of a broader “politics of exhaustion”; and second, I explore the specific forms and types of humanitarian action that emerge from citizens’ response to these policies. I do so by describing three moments in which these opposing logics of policing and politicization conjure

Density matrix renormalization group for the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition of the 19-vertex model

We embody the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method for the 19-vertex model on a square lattice in order to investigate the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. Elements of the transfer matrix of the 19-vertex model are classified in terms of the total value of arrows in one layer of the square lattice. By using this classification, we succeed to reduce enormously the dimension of the matrix which has to be diagonalized in the DMRG method. We apply our method to the 19-vertex model with the interaction $K=1.0866$ and obtain $c=1.006(1)$ for the conformal anomaly. PACS. 05.90.+m, 02.70.-cComment: RevTeX style, 20 pages, 12 figure

Breakdown of a conservation law in incommensurate systems

We show that invariance properties of the Lagrangian of an incommensurate system, as described by the Frenkel Kontorova model, imply the existence of a generalized angular momentum which is an integral of motion if the system remains floating. The behavior of this quantity can therefore monitor the character of the system as floating (when it is conserved) or locked (when it is not). We find that, during the dynamics, the non-linear couplings of our model cause parametric phonon excitations which lead to the appearance of Umklapp terms and to a sudden deviation of the generalized momentum from a constant value, signalling a dynamical transition from a floating to a pinned state. We point out that this transition is related but does not coincide with the onset of sliding friction which can take place when the system is still floating.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, typed with RevTex, submitted to Phys. Rev. E Replaced 27-03-2001: changes to text, minor revision of figure

Correlated percolation and the correlated resistor network

We present some exact results on percolation properties of the Ising model, when the range of the percolating bonds is larger than nearest-neighbors. We show that for a percolation range to next-nearest neighbors the percolation threshold Tp is still equal to the Ising critical temperature Tc, and present the phase diagram for this type of percolation. In addition, we present Monte Carlo calculations of the finite size behavior of the correlated resistor network defined on the Ising model. The thermal exponent t of the conductivity that follows from it is found to be t = 0.2000 +- 0.0007. We observe no corrections to scaling in its finite size behavior.Comment: 16 pages, REVTeX, 6 figures include

Equilibrium shapes and faceting for ionic crystals of body-centered-cubic type

A mean field theory is developed for the calculation of the surface free energy of the staggered BCSOS, (or six vertex) model as function of the surface orientation and of temperature. The model approximately describes surfaces of crystals with nearest neighbor attractions and next nearest neighbor repulsions. The mean field free energy is calculated by expressing the model in terms of interacting directed walks on a lattice. The resulting equilibrium shape is very rich with facet boundaries and boundaries between reconstructed and unreconstructed regions which can be either sharp (first order) or smooth (continuous). In addition there are tricritical points where a smooth boundary changes into a sharp one and triple points where three sharp boundaries meet. Finally our numerical results strongly suggest the existence of conical points, at which tangent planes of a finite range of orientations all intersect each other. The thermal evolution of the equilibrium shape in this model shows strong similarity to that seen experimentally for ionic crystals.Comment: 14 Pages, Revtex and 10 PostScript figures include

Monte Carlo simulation of ice models

We propose a number of Monte Carlo algorithms for the simulation of ice models and compare their efficiency. One of them, a cluster algorithm for the equivalent three colour model, appears to have a dynamic exponent close to zero, making it particularly useful for simulations of critical ice models. We have performed extensive simulations using our algorithms to determine a number of critical exponents for the square ice and F models.Comment: 32 pages including 15 postscript figures, typeset in LaTeX2e using the Elsevier macro package elsart.cl

Two phase transitions in the fully frustrated XYXY model

The fully frustrated $XY$ model on a square lattice is studied by means of Monte Carlo simulations. A Kosterlitz-Thouless transition is found at $T_{\rm KT} \approx 0.446$, followed by an ordinary Ising transition at a slightly higher temperature, $T_c \approx 0.452$. The non-Ising exponents reported by others, are explained as a failure of finite size scaling due to the screening length associated with the nearby Kosterlitz-Thouless transition.Comment: REVTEX file, 8 pages, 5 figures in uuencoded postscrip