1,782 research outputs found
Surface currents and slope selection in crystal growth
We face the problem to determine the slope dependent current during the
epitaxial growth process of a crystal surface. This current is proportional to
delta=(p+) + (p-), where (p+/-) are the probabilities for an atom landing on a
terrace to attach to the ascending (p+) or descending (p-) step. If the landing
probability is spatially uniform, the current is proved to be proportional to
the average (signed) distance traveled by an adatom before incorporation in the
growing surface. The phenomenon of slope selection is determined by the
vanishing of the asymmetry delta. We apply our results to the case of atoms
feeling step edge barriers and downward funnelling, or step edge barriers and
steering. In the general case, it is not correct to consider the slope
dependent current j as a sum of separate contributions due to different
mechanisms.Comment: 6 pages. The text has been strongly revised and Fig.1 has been
changed. Accepted for publication in the "Comptes Rendus Physique
Breakdown of metastable step-flow growth on vicinal surfaces induced by nucleation
We consider the growth of a vicinal crystal surface in the presence of a
step-edge barrier. For any value of the barrier strength, measured by the
length l_es, nucleation of islands on terraces is always able to destroy
asymptotically step-flow growth. The breakdown of the metastable step-flow
occurs through the formation of a mound of critical width proportional to
L_c=1/sqrt(l_es), the length associated to the linear instability of a
high-symmetry surface. The time required for the destabilization grows
exponentially with L_c. Thermal detachment from steps or islands, or a steeper
slope increase the instability time but do not modify the above picture, nor
change L_c significantly. Standard continuum theories cannot be used to
evaluate the activation energy of the critical mound and the instability time.
The dynamics of a mound can be described as a one dimensional random walk for
its height k: attaining the critical height (i.e. the critical size) means that
the probability to grow (k->k+1) becomes larger than the probability for the
mound to shrink (k->k-1). Thermal detachment induces correlations in the random
walk, otherwise absent.Comment: 10 pages. Minor changes. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Deterministic reaction models with power-law forces
We study a one-dimensional particles system, in the overdamped limit, where
nearest particles attract with a force inversely proportional to a power of
their distance and coalesce upon encounter. The detailed shape of the
distribution function for the gap between neighbouring particles serves to
discriminate between different laws of attraction. We develop an exact
Fokker-Planck approach for the infinite hierarchy of distribution functions for
multiple adjacent gaps and solve it exactly, at the mean-field level, where
correlations are ignored. The crucial role of correlations and their effect on
the gap distribution function is explored both numerically and analytically.
Finally, we analyse a random input of particles, which results in a stationary
state where the effect of correlations is largely diminished
Fracture precursors in disordered systems
A two-dimensional lattice model with bond disorder is used to investigate the
fracture behaviour under stress-controlled conditions. Although the cumulative
energy of precursors does not diverge at the critical point, its derivative
with respect to the control parameter (reduced stress) exhibits a singular
behaviour. Our results are nevertheless compatible with previous experimental
findings, if one restricts the comparison to the (limited) range accessible in
the experiment. A power-law avalanche distribution is also found with an
exponent close to the experimental values.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. Submitted to Europhysics Letter
On the relationship between directed percolation and the synchronization transition in spatially extended systems
We study the nature of the synchronization transition in spatially extended
systems by discussing a simple stochastic model. An analytic argument is put
forward showing that, in the limit of discontinuous processes, the transition
belongs to the directed percolation (DP) universality class. The analysis is
complemented by a detailed investigation of the dependence of the first passage
time for the amplitude of the difference field on the adopted threshold. We
find the existence of a critical threshold separating the regime controlled by
linear mechanisms from that controlled by collective phenomena. As a result of
this analysis we conclude that the synchronization transition belongs to the DP
class also in continuous models. The conclusions are supported by numerical
checks on coupled map lattices too
Dynamic model of fiber bundles
A realistic continuous-time dynamics for fiber bundles is introduced and
studied both analytically and numerically. The equation of motion reproduces
known stationary-state results in the deterministic limit while the system
under non-vanishing stress always breaks down in the presence of noise.
Revealed in particular is the characteristic time evolution that the system
tends to resist the stress for considerable time, followed by sudden complete
rupture. The critical stress beyond which the complete rupture emerges is also
obtained
ERROR PROPAGATION IN EXTENDED CHAOTIC SYSTEMS
A strong analogy is found between the evolution of localized disturbances in
extended chaotic systems and the propagation of fronts separating different
phases. A condition for the evolution to be controlled by nonlinear mechanisms
is derived on the basis of this relationship. An approximate expression for the
nonlinear velocity is also determined by extending the concept of Lyapunov
exponent to growth rate of finite perturbations.Comment: Tex file without figures- Figures and text in post-script available
via anonymous ftp at ftp://wpts0.physik.uni-wuppertal.de/pub/torcini/jpa_le
On the anomalous thermal conductivity of one-dimensional lattices
The divergence of the thermal conductivity in the thermodynamic limit is
thoroughly investigated. The divergence law is consistently determined with two
different numerical approaches based on equilibrium and non-equilibrium
simulations. A possible explanation in the framework of linear-response theory
is also presented, which traces back the physical origin of this anomaly to the
slow diffusion of the energy of long-wavelength Fourier modes. Finally, the
results of dynamical simulations are compared with the predictions of
mode-coupling theory.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Europhysics Letter
Checkerboards, stripes and corner energies in spin models with competing interactions
We study the zero temperature phase diagram of Ising spin systems in two
dimensions in the presence of competing interactions, long range
antiferromagnetic and nearest neighbor ferromagnetic of strength J. We first
introduce the notion of a "corner energy" which shows, when the
antiferromagnetic interaction decays faster than the fourth power of the
distance, that a striped state is favored with respect to a checkerboard state
when J is close to J_c, the transition to the ferromagnetic state, i.e., when
the length scales of the uniformly magnetized domains become large. Next, we
perform detailed analytic computations on the energies of the striped and
checkerboard states in the cases of antiferromagnetic interactions with
exponential decay and with power law decay r^{-p}, p>2, that depend on the
Manhattan distance instead of the Euclidean distance. We prove that the striped
phase is always favored compared to the checkerboard phase when the scale of
the ground state structure is very large. This happens for J\lesssim J_c if
p>3, and for J sufficiently large if 2<p<=3. Many of our considerations
involving rigorous bounds carry over to dimensions greater than two and to more
general short-range ferromagnetic interactions.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figure
Coexistence of coarsening and mean field relaxation in the long-range Ising chain
We study the kinetics after a low temperature quench of the one-dimensional Ising model with long range interactions between spins at distance r decaying as r-α. For α = 0, i.e. mean field, all spins evolve coherently quickly driving the system towards a magnetised state. In the weak long range regime with α > 1 there is a coarsening behaviour with competing domains of opposite sign without development of magnetisation. For strong long range, i.e. 0 < α < 1, we show that the system shows both features, with probability Pα(N) of having the latter one, with the different limiting behaviours limN→∞ Pα(N) = 0 (at fixed α < 1) and limα→1 Pα(N) = 1 (at fixed finite N). We discuss how this behaviour is a manifestation of an underlying dynamical scaling symmetry due to the presence of a single characteristic time τα(N) ∼ Nα
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