7,781 research outputs found
Controlling the composition of a confined fluid by an electric field
Starting from a generic model of a pore/bulk mixture equilibrium, we propose
a novel method for modulating the composition of the confined fluid without
having to modify the bulk state. To achieve this, two basic mechanisms -
sensitivity of the pore filling to the bulk thermodynamic state and electric
field effect - are combined. We show by Monte Carlo simulation that the
composition can be controlled both in a continuous and in a jumpwise way. Near
the bulk demixing instability, we demonstrate a field induced population
inversion in the pore. The conditions for the realization of this method should
be best met with colloids, but being based on robust and generic mechanisms, it
should also be applicable to some molecular fluids.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure
Universality of Tip Singularity Formation in Freezing Water Drops
A drop of water deposited on a cold plate freezes into an ice drop with a
pointy tip. While this phenomenon clearly finds its origin in the expansion of
water upon freezing, a quantitative description of the tip singularity has
remained elusive. Here we demonstrate how the geometry of the freezing front,
determined by heat transfer considerations, is crucial for the tip formation.
We perform systematic measurements of the angles of the conical tip, and reveal
the dynamics of the solidification front in a Hele-Shaw geometry. It is found
that the cone angle is independent of substrate temperature and wetting angle,
suggesting a universal, self-similar mechanism that does not depend on the rate
of solidification. We propose a model for the freezing front and derive
resulting tip angles analytically, in good agreement with observations.Comment: Letter format, 5 pages, 3 figures. Note: authors AGM and ORE
contributed equally to the pape
Emergence of pulled fronts in fermionic microscopic particle models
We study the emergence and dynamics of pulled fronts described by the
Fisher-Kolmogorov-Petrovsky-Piscounov (FKPP) equation in the microscopic
reaction-diffusion process A + A A$ on the lattice when only a particle is
allowed per site. To this end we identify the parameter that controls the
strength of internal fluctuations in this model, namely, the number of
particles per correlated volume. When internal fluctuations are suppressed, we
explictly see the matching between the deterministic FKPP description and the
microscopic particle model.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. E as a
Rapid Communicatio
Mass models of NGC 6624 without an intermediate-mass black hole
An intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) was recently reported to reside in the
centre of the Galactic globular cluster (GC) NGC 6624, based on timing
observations of a millisecond pulsar (MSP) located near the cluster centre in
projection. We present dynamical models with multiple mass components of NGC
6624 - without an IMBH - which successfully describe the surface brightness
profile and proper motion kinematics from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and
the stellar mass function at different distances from the cluster centre. The
maximum line-of-sight acceleration at the position of the MSP accommodates the
inferred acceleration of the MSP, as derived from its first period derivative.
With discrete realizations of the models we show that the higher-order period
derivatives - which were previously used to derive the IMBH mass - are due to
passing stars and stellar remnants, as previously shown analytically in
literature. We conclude that there is no need for an IMBH to explain the timing
observations of this MSP.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, MNRAS. Updated to match final journal styl
Fluctuating "Pulled" Fronts: the Origin and the Effects of a Finite Particle Cutoff
Recently it has been shown that when an equation that allows so-called pulled
fronts in the mean-field limit is modelled with a stochastic model with a
finite number of particles per correlation volume, the convergence to the
speed for is extremely slow -- going only as .
In this paper, we study the front propagation in a simple stochastic lattice
model. A detailed analysis of the microscopic picture of the front dynamics
shows that for the description of the far tip of the front, one has to abandon
the idea of a uniformly translating front solution. The lattice and finite
particle effects lead to a ``stop-and-go'' type dynamics at the far tip of the
front, while the average front behind it ``crosses over'' to a uniformly
translating solution. In this formulation, the effect of stochasticity on the
asymptotic front speed is coded in the probability distribution of the times
required for the advancement of the ``foremost bin''. We derive expressions of
these probability distributions by matching the solution of the far tip with
the uniformly translating solution behind. This matching includes various
correlation effects in a mean-field type approximation. Our results for the
probability distributions compare well to the results of stochastic numerical
simulations. This approach also allows us to deal with much smaller values of
than it is required to have the asymptotics to be valid.Comment: 26 pages, 11 figures, to appear in Phys. rev.
From the stress response function (back) to the sandpile `dip'
We relate the pressure `dip' observed at the bottom of a sandpile prepared by
successive avalanches to the stress profile obtained on sheared granular layers
in response to a localized vertical overload. We show that, within a simple
anisotropic elastic analysis, the skewness and the tilt of the response profile
caused by shearing provide a qualitative agreement with the sandpile dip
effect. We conclude that the texture anisotropy produced by the avalanches is
in essence similar to that induced by a simple shearing -- albeit tilted by the
angle of repose of the pile. This work also shows that this response function
technique could be very well adapted to probe the texture of static granular
packing.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, accepted version to appear in Eur. Phys. J.
Asymptotic Scaling of the Diffusion Coefficient of Fluctuating "Pulled" Fronts
We present a (heuristic) theoretical derivation for the scaling of the
diffusion coefficient for fluctuating ``pulled'' fronts. In agreement
with earlier numerical simulations, we find that as ,
approaches zero as , where is the average number of particles per
correlation volume in the stable phase of the front. This behaviour of
stems from the shape fluctuations at the very tip of the front, and is
independent of the microscopic model.Comment: Some minor algebra corrected, to appear in Rapid Comm., Phys. Rev.
The Universal Gaussian in Soliton Tails
We show that in a large class of equations, solitons formed from generic
initial conditions do not have infinitely long exponential tails, but are
truncated by a region of Gaussian decay. This phenomenon makes it possible to
treat solitons as localized, individual objects. For the case of the KdV
equation, we show how the Gaussian decay emerges in the inverse scattering
formalism.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, revtex with eps
Duality in interacting particle systems and boson representation
In the context of Markov processes, we show a new scheme to derive dual
processes and a duality function based on a boson representation. This scheme
is applicable to a case in which a generator is expressed by boson creation and
annihilation operators. For some stochastic processes, duality relations have
been known, which connect continuous time Markov processes with discrete state
space and those with continuous state space. We clarify that using a generating
function approach and the Doi-Peliti method, a birth-death process (or discrete
random walk model) is naturally connected to a differential equation with
continuous variables, which would be interpreted as a dual Markov process. The
key point in the derivation is to use bosonic coherent states as a bra state,
instead of a conventional projection state. As examples, we apply the scheme to
a simple birth-coagulation process and a Brownian momentum process. The
generator of the Brownian momentum process is written by elements of the
SU(1,1) algebra, and using a boson realization of SU(1,1) we show that the same
scheme is available.Comment: 13 page
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