We propose a variational superposed Gaussian approximation (VSGA) for dynamical solutions of Langevin equations subject to applied signals, determining time-dependent parameters of superposed Gaussian distributions by the variational principle. We apply the proposed VSGA to systems driven by a chaotic signal, where the conventional Fourier method cannot be adopted, and calculate the time evolution of probability density functions (PDFs) and moments. Both white and colored Gaussian noises terms are included to describe fluctuations. Our calculations show that time-dependent PDFs obtained by VSGA agree excellently with those obtained by Monte Carlo simulations. The correlation between the chaotic input signal and the mean response are also calculated as a function of the noise intensity, which confirms the occurrence of aperiodic stochastic resonance with both white and colored noises.

We investigate the evaporation of a droplet surrounded by superheated vapor with relative motion between phases. The evaporating droplet is a challenging process, as one must take into account the transport of mass, momentum, and heat. Here a lattice Boltzmann method is employed where phase change is controlled by a nonideal equation of state. First, numerical simulations are compared to the $D^2$ law for a vaporizing static droplet and good agreement is observed. Results are then presented for a droplet in a Lagrangian frame under a superheated vapor flow. Evaporation is described in terms of the temperature difference between liquid-vapor and the inertial forces. The internal liquid circulation driven by surface-shear stresses due to convection enhances the evaporation rate. Numerical simulations demonstrate that for higher Reynolds numbers, the dynamics of vaporization flux can be significantly affected, which may cause an oscillatory behavior on the droplet evaporation. The droplet-wake interaction and local mass flux are discussed in detail.

A model for the Reynolds-number dependence of the dimensionless dissipation rate $C_{\varepsilon }$ was derived from the dimensionless Kármán-Howarth equation, resulting in $C_{\varepsilon }=C_{\varepsilon ,\infty }+C/R_L+O(1/R_L^2)$, where $R_L$ is the integral scale Reynolds number. The coefficients $C$ and $C_{\varepsilon ,\infty }$ arise from asymptotic expansions of the dimensionless second- and third-order structure functions. This theoretical work was supplemented by direct numerical simulations (DNSs) of forced isotropic turbulence for integral scale Reynolds numbers up to $R_L=5875$ ($R_{\lambda }=435$), which were used to establish that the decay of dimensionless dissipation with increasing Reynolds number took the form of a power law $R_L^n$ with exponent value $n=-1.000\pm 0.009$ and that this decay of $C_{\varepsilon }$ was actually due to the increase in the Taylor surrogate $U^3/L$. The model equation was fitted to data from the DNS, which resulted in the value $C=18.9\pm 1.3$ and in an asymptotic value for $C_{\varepsilon }$ in the infinite Reynolds-number limit of $C_{\varepsilon ,\infty }=0.468\pm 0.006$.

Finite systems in confining potentials are known to undergo structural transitions similar to phase transitions. However, these systems are inhomogeneous, and their “melting” point may depend on the position in the trap and vary with the particle number. Focusing on three-dimensional Coulomb systems in a harmonic trap a rich physics is revealed: in addition to radial melting we demonstrate the existence of intrashell disordering and intershell angular melting. Our analysis takes advantage of a novel melting criterion that is based on the spatial two- and three-particle distribution functions and the associated reduced entropy which can be directly measured in complex plasma experiments.

We present an approach that can resolve the controversy with respect to the role of electron-electron collisions in calculating the dynamic conductivity of dense plasmas. In particular, the dc conductivity is analyzed in the low-density, nondegenerate limit where the Spitzer theory is valid and electron-electron collisions lead to the well-known reduction in comparison to the result considering only electron-ion collisions (Lorentz model). With increasing degeneracy, the contribution of electron-electron collisions to the dc conductivity is decreasing and can be neglected for the liquid metal domain where the Ziman theory is applicable. We give expressions for the effect of electron-electron collisions in calculating the conductivity in the warm dense matter region, i.e., for strongly coupled Coulomb systems at arbitrary degeneracy.

Branching processes pervade many models in statistical physics. We investigate the survival probability of a Galton-Watson branching process after a finite number of generations. We derive analytically the existence of finite-size scaling for the survival probability as a function of the control parameter and the maximum number of generations, obtaining the critical exponents as well as the exact scaling function, which is $\mathcal{G}\left(y\right)=2y{e}^y/(e^y-1)$, with $y$ the rescaled distance to the critical point. Our findings are valid for any branching process of the Galton-Watson type, independently of the distribution of the number of offspring, provided its variance is finite. This proves the universal behavior of the finite-size effects in branching processes, including the universality of the metric factors. The direct relation to mean-field percolation is also discussed.

We investigate quantum scaling phenomena driven by lower-dimensional defects in quantum Ising-like models. We consider quantum Ising rings in the presence of a bond defect. In the ordered phase, the system undergoes a quantum transition driven by the bond defect between a magnet phase, in which the gap decreases exponentially with increasing size, and a kink phase, in which the gap decreases instead with a power of the size. Close to the transition, the system shows a universal scaling behavior, which we characterize by computing, either analytically or numerically, scaling functions for the low-level energy differences and the two-point correlation function. We discuss the implications of these results for the nonequilibrium dynamics in the presence of a slowly varying parallel magnetic field $h$, when going across the first-order quantum transition at $h=0$.

The purpose of this paper is to implement a random death process into a persistent random walk model which produces sub-ballistic superdiffusion (Lévy walk). We develop a stochastic two-velocity jump model of cell motility for which the switching rate depends upon the time which the cell has spent moving in one direction. It is assumed that the switching rate is a decreasing function of residence (running) time. This assumption leads to the power law for the velocity switching time distribution. This describes the anomalous persistence of cell motility: the longer the cell moves in one direction, the smaller the switching probability to another direction becomes. We derive master equations for the cell densities with the generalized switching terms involving the tempered fractional material derivatives. We show that the random death of cells has an important implication for the transport process through tempering of the superdiffusive process. In the long-time limit we write stationary master equations in terms of exponentially truncated fractional derivatives in which the rate of death plays the role of tempering of a Lévy jump distribution. We find the upper and lower bounds for the stationary profiles corresponding to the ballistic transport and diffusion with the death-rate-dependent diffusion coefficient. Monte Carlo simulations confirm these bounds.

We analytically investigate the heat current $\mathcal{I}$ and its thermal fluctuations $\Delta$ in a branching network without loops (Cayley tree). The network consists of two types of harmonic masses: vertex masses $M$ placed at the branching points where phononic scattering occurs and masses $m$ at the bonds between branching points where phonon propagation takes place. The network is coupled to thermal reservoirs consisting of one-dimensional harmonic chains of coupled masses $m$. Due to impedance mismatch phenomena, both $\mathcal{I}$ and $\Delta$ are non-monotonic functions of the mass ratio $\mu =M/m$. Furthermore, we find that in the low-temperature limit the thermal conductance approaches zero faster than linearly due to the small transmittance of the long-wavelength modes.

Random packing of surfaceless starlike particles built of 3 to 50 line segments was studied using random sequential adsorption algorithm. Numerical simulations allow us to determine saturated packing densities as well as the first two virial expansion coefficients for such objects. Measured kinetics of the packing growth supports the power law known to be valid for particles with a finite surface; however, the dependence of the exponent in this law on the number of star arms is unexpected. The density autocorrelation function shows fast superexponential decay as for disks, but the typical distance between closest stars is much smaller than between disks of the similar size, especially for a small number of arms.

The generation of directed movement of cellular components frequently requires the rectification of Brownian motion. Molecular motor enzymes that use ATP to walk on filamentous tracks are typically involved in cell transport, however, a track-altering motor can arise when an enzyme interacts with and alters its track. In Caulobacter crescentus and other bacteria, an active DNA partitioning (Par) apparatus is employed to segregate replicated chromosome regions to specific locations in dividing cells. The Par apparatus is composed of two proteins: ParA, an ATPase that can form polymeric structures on the nucleoid, and ParB, a protein that can bind and destabilize ParA structures. It has been proposed that the ParB-mediated alteration of ParA structures could be responsible for generating the directed movement of DNA during bacterial division. How precisely these actions are coordinated and translated into directed movement is not clear. In this paper we consider the C. crescentus segregation apparatus as an example of a track altering motor that operates using a so-called burnt-bridge mechanism. We develop and analyze mathematical models that examine how diffusion and ATP-hydrolysis-mediated monomer removal (or cleaving) can be combined to generate directed movement. Using a mean first passage approach, we analytically calculate the effective ParA track-cleaving velocities, effective diffusion coefficient, and other higher moments for the movement a ParB protein cluster that breaks monomers away at random locations on a single ParA track. Our model results indicate that cleaving velocities and effective diffusion constants are sensitive to ParB-induced ATP hydrolysis rates. Our analytical results are in excellent agreement with stochastic simulation results.

We propose a variational approach to study renormalized phonons in momentum-conserving nonlinear lattices with either symmetric or asymmetric potentials. To investigate the influence of pressure for phonon properties, we derive an inequality which provides both the lower and upper bound of the Gibbs free energy as the associated variational principle. This inequality is a direct extension to the Gibbs-Bogoliubov inequality. Taking the symmetry effect into account, the reference system for the variational approach is chosen to be harmonic with an asymmetric quadratic potential which contains variational parameters. We demonstrate the power of this approach by applying it to one-dimensional nonlinear lattices with a symmetric or asymmetric Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-type potential. For a system with a symmetric potential and zero pressure, we recover existing results. For other systems which are beyond the scope of existing theories, including those having symmetric potential and pressure and those having the asymmetric potential with or without pressure, we also obtain accurate sound velocity.

The equation of state of partially ionized hydrogen plasma is considered with special focus on the contribution of the $e\text{−}{\mathrm{H}}_2$ interaction. Traditional semiempirical concepts such as the excluded volume are improved using microscopic approaches to treat the $e\text{−}{\mathrm{H}}_2$ problem. Within a cluster virial expansion, the Beth-Uhlenbeck formula is applied to infer the contribution of bound and scattering states to the temperature-dependent second virial coefficient. The scattering states are calculated using the phase expansion method for the polarization interaction that incorporates experimental data for the $e\text{−}{\mathrm{H}}_2$ scattering cross section. We present results for the scattering phase shifts, differential scattering cross sections, and the second virial coefficient due to the $e\text{−}{\mathrm{H}}_2$ interaction. The influence of this interaction on the composition of the partially ionized hydrogen plasma is confined to the parameter range where both the ${\mathrm{H}}_2$ and the free-electron components are abundant.

The nonbacktracking operator for a graph is the adjacency matrix defined on directed edges of the graph. The operator was recently shown to perform optimally in spectral clustering in sparse synthetic graphs and have a deep connection to belief propagation algorithm. In this paper we consider nonbacktracking operator for Ising model on a general graph with a general coupling distribution and study the spectrum of this operator analytically. We show that spectral algorithms based on this operator is equivalent to belief propagation algorithm linearized at the paramagnetic fixed point and recovers replica-symmetry results on phase boundaries obtained by replica methods. This operator can be applied directly to systems with multiple states like Hopfield model. We show that spectrum of the operator can be used to determine number of patterns that stored successfully in the network, and the associated eigenvectors can be used to retrieve all the patterns simultaneously. We also give an example on how to control the Hopfield model, i.e., making network more sparse while keeping patterns stable, using the nonbacktracking operator and matrix perturbation theory.

The critical behavior of the Binder cumulant for Ising spin glasses in dimension four is studied through simulation measurements. Data for the bimodal interaction model are compared with those for the Laplacian interaction model. Special attention is paid to scaling corrections. The limiting infinite size value at criticality for this dimensionless variable is a parameter characteristic of a universality class. This critical limit is estimated to be equal to 0.523(3) in the bimodal model and to 0.473(3) in the Laplacian model.

We studied real-time motion of individual 20-nm silica nanoparticles in a thin layer of a nematic liquid crystal using a dark-field optical videomicroscopy. By tracking the positions of individual nanoparticles we observed that particle pair interactions are not only mediated by strong thermal fluctuations of the nematic liquid crystal, but also with a repulsive force of electric origin. We determined the total electric charge of silanated silica particles in the nematic liquid crystal 5CB by observing the electric-force-driven drift. Surprisingly, the surface electric charge density depends on colloidal size and is $\sim 4.5\times {10}^{-3}\text{C}/{\text{m}}^2$ for 20-nm nanocolloids, and two orders of magnitude lower, i.e., $\sim 2.3\times {10}^{-5}\text{C}/{\text{m}}^2$, for $1\text{−}\mu \text{m}$ colloids. We conclude that electrostatic repulsion between like-charged particles prevents the formation of permanent colloidal assemblies of nanometer size. We also observed strong attraction of 20-nm silica nanoparticles to confining polyimide surfaces and larger clusters, which gradually results in complete expulsion of nanoparticles from the nematic liquid crystal to the surfaces of the confining cell.

We present an x-ray study of freely suspended hexatic films of the liquid crystal 3(10)OBC. Our results reveal spatial inhomogeneities of the bond-orientational (BO) order in the vicinity of the hexatic-smectic phase transition and the formation of large-scale hexatic domains at lower temperatures. Deep in the hexatic phase up to 25 successive sixfold BO order parameters have been directly determined by means of angular x-ray cross-correlation analysis (XCCA). Such strongly developed hexatic order allowed us to determine higher order correction terms in the scaling relation predicted by the multicritical scaling theory over a full temperature range of the hexatic phase existence.

A class of nonlocal nonlinear Schrödinger equations (NLSEs) is considered in an external potential with a space-time modulated coefficient of the nonlinear interaction term as well as confining and/or loss-gain terms. This is a generalization of a recently introduced integrable nonlocal NLSE with self-induced potential that is parity-time-symmetric in the corresponding stationary problem. Exact soliton solutions are obtained for the inhomogeneous and/or nonautonomous nonlocal NLSE by using similarity transformation, and the method is illustrated with a few examples. It is found that only those transformations are allowed for which the transformed spatial coordinate is odd under the parity transformation of the original one. It is shown that the nonlocal NLSE without the external potential and a $\left(d+1\right)$-dimensional generalization of it admits all the symmetries of the $\left(d+1\right)$-dimensional Schrödinger group. The conserved Noether charges associated with the time translation, dilatation, and special conformal transformation are shown to be real-valued in spite of being non-Hermitian. Finally, the dynamics of different moments are studied with an exact description of the time evolution of the “pseudowidth” of the wave packet for the special case in which the system admits a $O(2,1)$ conformal symmetry.

The reduction procedure for the general coupled nonlinear Schrödinger (GCNLS) equations with four-wave mixing terms is proposed. It is shown that the GCNLS system is equivalent to the well known integrable families of the Manakov and Makhankov $U(n,m)$-vector models. This equivalence allows us to construct bright-bright and dark-dark solitons and a quasibreather-dark solution with unconventional dynamics: the density of the first component oscillates in space and time, whereas the density of the second component does not. The collision properties of solitons are also studied.

Recently, there has been much progress in creating microswimmers or microrobots capable of controlled propulsion in fluidic environments. These microswimmers have numerous possible applications in biomedicine, microfabrication, and sensing. One type of effective microrobot consists of rigid magnetic helical microswimmers that are propelled when rotated at a range of frequencies by an external rotating magnetic field. Here we focus on investigating which magnetic dipoles and helical geometries optimally lead to linear velocity-frequency response, which may be desirable for the precise control and positioning of microswimmers. We identify a class of optimal magnetic field moments. We connect our results to the wobbling behavior previously observed and studied in helical microswimmers. In contrast to previous studies, we find that when the full helical geometry is taken into account, wobble-free motion is not possible for magnetic fields rotating in a plane. Our results compare well quantitatively to previously reported experiments, validating the theoretical analysis method. Finally, in the context of our optimal moments, we identify helical geometries for minimization of wobbling and maximization of swimming velocities.