34,971 research outputs found
Dynamics of the critical Casimir force for a conserved order parameter after a critical quench
Fluctuation-induced forces occur generically when long-ranged correlations
(e.g., in fluids) are confined by external bodies. In classical systems, such
correlations require specific conditions, e.g., a medium close to a critical
point. On the other hand, long-ranged correlations appear more commonly in
certain non-equilibrium systems with conservation laws. Consequently, a variety
of non-equilibrium fluctuation phenomena, including fluctuation-induced forces,
have been discovered and explored recently. Here, we address a long-standing
problem of non-equilibrium critical Casimir forces emerging after a quench to
the critical point in a confined fluid with order-parameter-conserving dynamics
and non-symmetry-breaking boundary conditions. The interplay of inherent
(critical) fluctuations and dynamical non-local effects (due to density
conservation) gives rise to striking features, including correlation functions
and forces exhibiting oscillatory time-dependences. Complex transient regimes
arise, depending on initial conditions and the geometry of the confinement. Our
findings pave the way for exploring a wealth of non-equilibrium processes in
critical fluids (e.g., fluctuation-mediated self-assembly or aggregation). In
certain regimes, our results are applicable to active matter.Comment: 38 pages, 11 figure
Supersonic quantum communication
When locally exciting a quantum lattice model, the excitation will propagate
through the lattice. The effect is responsible for a wealth of non-equilibrium
phenomena, and has been exploited to transmit quantum information through spin
chains. It is a commonly expressed belief that for local Hamiltonians, any such
propagation happens at a finite "speed of sound". Indeed, the Lieb-Robinson
theorem states that in spin models, all effects caused by a perturbation are
limited to a causal cone defined by a constant speed, up to exponentially small
corrections. In this work we show that for translationally invariant bosonic
models with nearest-neighbor interactions, this belief is incorrect: We prove
that one can encounter excitations which accelerate under the natural dynamics
of the lattice and allow for reliable transmission of information faster than
any finite speed of sound. The effect is only limited by the model's range of
validity (eventually by relativity). It also implies that in non-equilibrium
dynamics of strongly correlated bosonic models far-away regions may become
quickly entangled, suggesting that their simulation may be much harder than
that of spin chains even in the low energy sector.Comment: 4+3 pages, 1 figure, some material added, typographic error fixe
Non-Douglas-Kazakov phase transition of two-dimensional generalized Yang-Mills theories
In two-dimensional Yang-Mills and generalized Yang-Mills theories for large
gauge groups, there is a dominant representation determining the thermodynamic
limit of the system. This representation is characterized by a density the
value of which should everywhere be between zero and one. This density itself
is determined through a saddle-point analysis. For some values of the parameter
space, this density exceeds one in some places. So one should modify it to
obtain an acceptable density. This leads to the well-known Douglas-Kazakov
phase transition. In generalized Yang-Mills theories, there are also regions in
the parameter space where somewhere this density becomes negative. Here too,
one should modify the density so that it remains nonnegative. This leads to
another phase transition, different from the Douglas-Kazakov one. Here the
general structure of this phase transition is studied, and it is shown that the
order of this transition is typically three. Using carefully-chosen parameters,
however, it is possible to construct models with phase-transition orders not
equal to three. A class of these non-typical models are also studied.Comment: 11 pages, accepted for publication in Eur. Phys. J.
Evaluation of the Free Energy of Two-Dimensional Yang-Mills Theory
The free energy in the weak-coupling phase of two-dimensional Yang-Mills
theory on a sphere for SO(N) and Sp(N) is evaluated in the 1/N expansion using
the techniques of Gross and Matytsin. Many features of Yang-Mills theory are
universal among different gauge groups in the large N limit, but significant
differences arise in subleading order in 1/N.Comment: 10 pages; no figures; LaTe
What Drives Car Attitudes: An Analysis of How Demographics and Environmental Views Relate to Car Attitudes
Successfully marketing new, clean, car technologies to consumers requires an advertising strategy that fits consumers’ priorities and attitudes towards cars. We created a survey to study how attitudes towards cars are associated with demographics and environmental views. Our study examined car preferences and environmental concerns of a sample of Gettysburg College students in comparison to a national sample obtained from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Overall, we concluded that environmental beliefs are a significantly better prediction of car behaviors than demographics. We found that on average people would pay more for a car with a higher fuel economy, but not enough to cover the higher price of newer, cleaner technologies, such as hybrid cars. Gettysburg College students’ environmental concern scores were significantly higher on average than that of the general American population. Survey respondents from both samples supported devoting more research and resources to hybrid, electric, and biofuel technologies. However, in regards to their personal purchases they ranked safety and other qualities of the car as higher priorities than greenhouse gas emissions or fuel economy. According to our results, marketing electric cars as safe and reliable is a better strategy than marketing their high fuel economy
Detection of the tagged or untagged photons in acousto-optic imaging of thick highly scattering media by photorefractive adaptive holography
We propose an original adaptive wavefront holographic setup based on the
photorefractive effect (PR), to make real-time measurements of acousto-optic
signals in thick scattering media, with a high flux collection at high rates
for breast tumor detection. We describe here our present state of art and
understanding on the problem of breast imaging with PR detection of the
acousto-optic signal
Magneto-optical imaging of voltage-controlled magnetization reorientation
We study the validity and limitations of a macrospin model to describe the
voltage-controlled manipulation of ferromagnetic magnetization in nickel thin
film/piezoelectric actuator hybrid structures. To this end, we correlate
simultaneously measured spatially resolved magneto-optical Kerr effect imaging
and integral magnetotransport measurements at room temperature. Our results
show that a macrospin approach is adequate to model the magnetoresistance as a
function of the voltage applied to the hybrid, except for a narrow region
around the coercive field - where the magnetization reorientation evolves via
domain effects. Thus, on length scales much larger than the typical magnetic
domain size, the voltage control of magnetization is well reproduced by a
simple Stoner-Wohlfarth type macrospin model
Scalable reconstruction of density matrices
Recent contributions in the field of quantum state tomography have shown
that, despite the exponential growth of Hilbert space with the number of
subsystems, tomography of one-dimensional quantum systems may still be
performed efficiently by tailored reconstruction schemes. Here, we discuss a
scalable method to reconstruct mixed states that are well approximated by
matrix product operators. The reconstruction scheme only requires local
information about the state, giving rise to a reconstruction technique that is
scalable in the system size. It is based on a constructive proof that generic
matrix product operators are fully determined by their local reductions. We
discuss applications of this scheme for simulated data and experimental data
obtained in an ion trap experiment.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, replaced with published versio
Ensemble dependence of Critical Casimir Forces in Films with Dirichlet Boundary Conditions
In a recent study [Phys. Rev. E \textbf{94}, 022103 (2016)] it has been shown
that, for a fluid film subject to critical adsorption, the resulting critical
Casimir force (CCF) may significantly depend on the thermodynamic ensemble.
Here, we extend that study by considering fluid films within the so-called
ordinary surface universality class. We focus on mean-field theory, within
which the OP profile satisfies Dirichlet boundary conditions and produces a
nontrivial CCF in the presence of external bulk fields or, respectively, a
nonzero total order parameter within the film. Our analytical results are
supported by Monte Carlo simulations of the three-dimensional Ising model. We
show that, in the canonical ensemble, i.e., when fixing the so-called total
mass within the film, the CCF is typically repulsive instead of attractive as
in the grand canonical ensemble. Based on the Landau-Ginzburg free energy, we
furthermore obtain analytic expressions for the order parameter profiles and
analyze the relation between the total mass in the film and the external bulk
field.Comment: 22 pages, 15 figures. Version 2: minor corrections; added Journal
referenc
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