Scaling Theory for Steady State Plastic Flows in Amorphous Solids

Strongly correlated amorphous solids are a class of glass-formers whose inter-particle potential admits an approximate inverse power-law form in a relevant range of inter-particle distances. We study the steady-state plastic flow of such systems, firstly in the athermal, quasi-static limit, and secondly at finite temperatures and strain rates. In all cases we demonstrate the usefulness of scaling concepts to reduce the data to universal scaling functions where the scaling exponents are determined a-priori from the inter-particle potential. In particular we show that the steady plastic flow at finite temperatures with efficient heat extraction is uniquely characterized by two scaled variables; equivalently, the steady state displays an equation of state that relates one scaled variable to the other two. We discuss the range of applicability of the scaling theory, and the connection to density scaling in supercooled liquid dynamics. We explain that the description of transient states calls for additional state variables whose identity is still far from obvious.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure

Analysis of microwave radiometric measurements from Skylab

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Pseudo diamagnetism of four component exciton condensates

We analyze the spin structure of the ground state of four-component exciton condensates in coupled quantum wells as a function of spin-dependent interactions and applied magnetic field. The four components correspond to the degenerate exciton states characterized by $\pm2$ and $\pm1$ spin projections to the axis of the structure. We show that in a wide range of parameters, the chemical potential of the system increases as a function of magnetic field, which manifests a pseudo-diamagnetism of the system. The transitions to polarized two- and one-component condensates can be of the first-order in this case. The predicted effects are caused by energy conserving mixing of $\pm2$ and $\pm1$ excitons.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Statistical Physics of Elasto-Plastic Steady States in Amorphous Solids: Finite Temperatures and Strain Rates

The effect of finite temperature $T$ and finite strain rate $\dot\gamma$ on the statistical physics of plastic deformations in amorphous solids made of $N$ particles is investigated. We recognize three regimes of temperature where the statistics are qualitatively different. In the first regime the temperature is very low, $T<T_{\rm cross}(N)$, and the strain is quasi-static. In this regime the elasto-plastic steady state exhibits highly correlated plastic events whose statistics are characterized by anomalous exponents. In the second regime $T_{\rm cross}(N)<T<T_{\rm max}(\dot\gamma)$ the system-size dependence of the stress fluctuations becomes normal, but the variance depends on the strain rate. The physical mechanism of the cross-over is different for increasing temperature and increasing strain rate, since the plastic events are still dominated by the mechanical instabilities (seen as an eigenvalue of the Hessian matrix going to zero), and the effect of temperature is only to facilitate the transition. A third regime occurs above the second cross-over temperature $T_{\rm max}(\dot\gamma)$ where stress fluctuations become dominated by thermal noise. Throughout the paper we demonstrate that scaling concepts are highly relevant for the problem at hand, and finally we present a scaling theory that is able to collapse the data for all the values of temperatures and strain rates, providing us with a high degree of predictability.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figure

Cosine and Sine Operators Related with Orthogonal Polynomial Sets on the Intervall [-1,1]

The quantization of phase is still an open problem. In the approach of Susskind and Glogower so called cosine and sine operators play a fundamental role. Their eigenstates in the Fock representation are related with the Chebyshev polynomials of the second kind. Here we introduce more general cosine and sine operators whose eigenfunctions in the Fock basis are related in a similar way with arbitrary orthogonal polynomial sets on the intervall [-1,1]. To each polynomial set defined in terms of a weight function there corresponds a pair of cosine and sine operators. Depending on the symmetry of the weight function we distinguish generalized or extended operators. Their eigenstates are used to define cosine and sine representations and probability distributions. We consider also the inverse arccosine and arcsine operators and use their eigenstates to define cosine-phase and sine-phase distributions, respectively. Specific, numerical and graphical results are given for the classical orthogonal polynomials and for particular Fock and coherent states.Comment: 1 tex-file (24 pages), 11 figure

Crossover from diffusive to strongly localized regime in two-dimensional systems

We have studied the conductance distribution function of two-dimensional disordered noninteracting systems in the crossover regime between the diffusive and the localized phases. The distribution is entirely determined by the mean conductance, g, in agreement with the strong version of the single-parameter scaling hypothesis. The distribution seems to change drastically at a critical value very close to one. For conductances larger than this critical value, the distribution is roughly Gaussian while for smaller values it resembles a log-normal distribution. The two distributions match at the critical point with an often appreciable change in behavior. This matching implies a jump in the first derivative of the distribution which does not seem to disappear as system size increases. We have also studied 1/g corrections to the skewness to quantify the deviation of the distribution from a Gaussian function in the diffusive regime.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Gene identification for the cblD defect of vitamin B12 metabolism

Background Vitamin B12 (cobalamin) is an essential cofactor in several metabolic pathways. Intracellular conversion of cobalamin to its two coenzymes, adenosylcobalamin in mitochondria and methylcobalamin in the cytoplasm, is necessary for the homeostasis of methylmalonic acid and homocysteine. Nine defects of intracellular cobalamin metabolism have been defined by means of somatic complementation analysis. One of these defects, the cblD defect, can cause isolated methylmalonic aciduria, isolated homocystinuria, or both. Affected persons present with multisystem clinical abnormalities, including developmental, hematologic, neurologic, and metabolic findings. The gene responsible for the cblD defect has not been identified. Methods We studied seven patients with the cblD defect, and skin fibroblasts from each were investigated in cell culture. Microcell-mediated chromosome transfer and refined genetic mapping were used to localize the responsible gene. This gene was transfected into cblD fibroblasts to test for the rescue of adenosylcobalamin and methylcobalamin synthesis. Results The cblD gene was localized to human chromosome 2q23.2, and a candidate gene, designated MMADHC (methylmalonic aciduria, cblD type, and homocystinuria), was identified in this region. Transfection of wild-type MMADHC rescued the cellular phenotype, and the functional importance of mutant alleles was shown by means of transfection with mutant constructs. The predicted MMADHC protein has sequence homology with a bacterial ATP-binding cassette transporter and contains a putative cobalamin binding motif and a putative mitochondrial targeting sequence. Conclusions Mutations in a gene we designated MMADHC are responsible for the cblD defect in vitamin B12 metabolism. Various mutations are associated with each of the three biochemical phenotypes of the disorder

Toward a microscopic description of flow near the jamming threshold

We study the relationship between microscopic structure and viscosity in non-Brownian suspensions. We argue that the formation and opening of contacts between particles in flow effectively leads to a negative selection of the contacts carrying weak forces. We show that an analytically tractable model capturing this negative selection correctly reproduces scaling properties of flows near the jamming transition. In particular, we predict that (i) the viscosity {\eta} diverges with the coordination z as {\eta} ~ (z_c-z)^{-(3+{\theta})/(1+{\theta})}, (ii) the operator that governs flow displays a low-frequency mode that controls the divergence of viscosity, at a frequency {\omega}_min\sim(z_c-z)^{(3+{\theta})/(2+2{\theta})}, and (iii) the distribution of forces displays a scale f* that vanishes near jamming as f*/\sim(z_c-z)^{1/(1+{\theta})} where {\theta} characterizes the distribution of contact forces P(f)\simf^{\theta} at jamming, and where z_c is the Maxwell threshold for rigidity.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

One-dimensional transport of bosons between weakly linked reservoirs

We study a flow of ultracold bosonic atoms through a one-dimensional channel that connects two macroscopic three-dimensional reservoirs of Bose-condensed atoms via weak links implemented as potential barriers between each of the reservoirs and the channel. We consider reservoirs at equal chemical potentials so that a superflow of the quasicondensate through the channel is driven purely by a phase difference 2Φ imprinted between the reservoirs. We find that the superflow never has the standard Josephson form ∼ sin 2Φ. Instead, the superflow discontinuously flips direction at 2Φ ¼ _π and has metastable branches.We show that these features are robust and not smeared by fluctuations or phase slips. We describe a possible experimental setup for observing these phenomen