We provide exact expressions for the electrostatic energy of uniformly charged prolate and oblate spheroidal shells. We find that uniformly charged prolate spheroids of eccentricity greater than 0.9 have lower Coulomb energy than a sphere of the same area. For the volume-constrained case, we find that a sphere has the highest Coulomb energy among all spheroidal shells. Further, we derive the change in the Coulomb energy of a uniformly charged shell due to small, area-conserving perturbations on the spherical shape. Our perturbation calculations show that buckling-type deformations on a sphere can lower the Coulomb energy. Finally, we consider the possibility of counterion condensation on the spheroidal shell surface. We employ a Manning-Oosawa two-state model approximation to evaluate the renormalized charge and analyze the behavior of the equilibrium free energy as a function of the shell's aspect ratio for both area-constrained and volume-constrained cases. Counterion condensation is seen to favor the formation of spheroidal structures over a sphere of equal area for high values of shell volume fractions.

This study considers a reaction-diffusion medium that supports a rotating scroll wave with stationary filament and diffusivity matrix $D.$ The filament is a geodesic curve in three-space. The metric tensor $g$ associated with that geodesic is obtained in terms of $D,$ resulting in $g=(detD)D^{-1}.$ Here $detD$ (the determinant of $D)$ is not necessarily constant in space. The $detD$ factor, although strongly indicated previously, has not yet been derived deductively, as it is here. We take the opportunity to outline, starting from the reaction-diffusion equations, a sequence of mathematical steps leading to both geodesic and metric.

Linearly polarized solitary waves, arising from the interaction of an intense laser pulse with a plasma, are investigated. Localized structures, in the form of exact numerical nonlinear solutions of the one-dimensional Maxwell-fluid model for a cold plasma with fixed ions, are presented. Unlike stationary circularly polarized solitary waves, the linear polarization gives rise to a breather-type behavior and a periodic exchange of electromagnetic energy and electron kinetic energy at twice the frequency of the wave. A numerical method based on a finite-differences scheme allows us to compute a branch of solutions within the frequency range ${\Omega }_{min}<\Omega <{\omega }_{pe}$, where ${\omega }_{pe}$ and ${\Omega }_{min}$ are the electron plasma frequency and the frequency value for which the plasma density vanishes locally, respectively. A detailed description of the spatiotemporal structure of the waves and their main properties as a function of $\Omega$ is presented. Small-amplitude oscillations appearing in the tail of the solitary waves, a consequence of the linear polarization and harmonic excitation, are explained with the aid of the Akhiezer-Polovin system. Direct numerical simulations of the Maxwell-fluid model show that these solitary waves propagate without change for a long time.

Giant cross-magnetic-field steps can occur as a result of positron-electron collisions. Within a constant magnetic field (e.g., 1 T), a collision between a positron and an electron can result in a correlated drift across the magnetic field for a continuous range of impact parameters. Within this range, drift distances orders of magnitude larger than that associated with like-charge collisions were observed by computer simulation. Outside of this range, the collisional behavior is similar to that for collisions between particles with the same charge. A theoretical analysis of the phenomenon using center-of-mass and relative coordinates provides insights regarding the occurrence of giant cross-magnetic-field steps.

Via the $N\mathrm{th}$ Darboux transformation, a chain of nonsingular localized-wave solutions is derived for a nonlocal nonlinear Schrödinger equation with the self-induced parity-time $\left(\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}\right)$ -symmetric potential. It is found that the $N\mathrm{th}$ iterated solution in general exhibits a variety of elastic interactions among $2N$ solitons on a continuous-wave background and each interacting soliton could be the dark or antidark type. The interactions with an arbitrary odd number of solitons can also be obtained under different degenerate conditions. With $N=1$ and 2, the two-soliton and four-soliton interactions and their various degenerate cases are discussed in the asymptotic analysis. Numerical simulations are performed to support the analytical results, and the stability analysis indicates that the $\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$-symmetry breaking can also destroy the stability of the soliton interactions.

We introduce a class of maximum-entropy states that naturally includes within it all of the major continuous-time stochastic processes that have been applied to animal movement, including Brownian motion, Ornstein-Uhlenbeck motion, integrated Ornstein-Uhlenbeck motion, a recently discovered hybrid of the previous models, and a new model that describes central-place foraging. We are also able to predict a further hierarchy of new models that will emerge as data quality improves to better resolve the underlying continuity of animal movement. Finally, we also show that Langevin equations must obey a fluctuation-dissipation theorem to generate processes that fall from this class of maximum-entropy distributions when the constraints are purely kinematic.

A grid comb model is a generalization of the well known comb model, and it consists of $N$ backbones. For $N=1$ the system reduces to the comb model where subdiffusion takes place with the transport exponent $1/2$. We present an exact analytical evaluation of the transport exponent of anomalous diffusion for finite and infinite number of backbones. We show that for an arbitrarily large but finite number of backbones the transport exponent does not change. Contrary to that, for an infinite number of backbones, the transport exponent depends on the fractal dimension of the backbone structure.

The Burton-Cabrera-Frank (BCF) model for the flow of line defects (steps) on crystal surfaces has offered useful insights into nanostructure evolution. This model has rested on phenomenological grounds. Our goal is to show via scaling arguments the emergence of the BCF theory for noninteracting steps from a stochastic atomistic scheme of a kinetic restricted solid-on-solid model in one spatial dimension. Our main assumptions are: adsorbed atoms (adatoms) form a dilute system, and elastic effects of the crystal lattice are absent. The step edge is treated as a front that propagates via probabilistic rules for atom attachment and detachment at the step. We formally derive a quasistatic step flow description by averaging out the stochastic scheme when terrace diffusion, adatom desorption, and deposition from above are present.

Recently, there has been growing interest in the electrical properties of bacteriorhodopsin (bR), a protein belonging to the transmembrane protein family. Several experiments pointed out the role of green light in enhancing the current flow in nanolayers of bR, thus confirming potential applications of this protein in the field of optoelectronics. By contrast, the mechanisms underlying the charge transfer and the associated photocurrent are still far from being understood at a microscopic level. To take into account the structure-dependent nature of the current, in a previous set of papers we suggested a mechanism of sequential tunneling among neighboring amino acids. As a matter of fact, when irradiated with green light, bR undergoes a conformational change at a molecular level. Thus, the role played by the protein tertiary-structure in modeling the charge transfer cannot be neglected. The aim of this paper is to go beyond previous models, in the framework of a new branch of electronics we call proteotronics, which exploits the ability of using proteins as reliable, well-understood materials for the development of novel bioelectronic devices. In particular, the present approach assumes that the conformational change is not the unique transformation the protein undergoes when irradiated by light. Instead, the light can also promote an increase of the protein state free energy that, in turn, should modify its internal degree of connectivity. This phenomenon is here described by the change of the value of an interaction radius associated with the physical interactions among amino acids. The implemented model enables us to achieve a better agreement between theory and experiments in the region of a low applied bias by preserving the level of agreement at high values of applied bias. Furthermore, results provide new insights on the mechanisms responsible for bR photoresponse.

We considered the rate at which a diffusing particle encounters a target in a three-dimensional lattice of compartments with semipermeable walls. This work expands a previous theory [Li et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 028303 (2014)] for the encounter rate in the dilute limit of targets to the general case of any density of targets. We also used Brownian dynamics simulations to evaluate the approximations in the analytical theory. We find that the largest errors in the analytical theory are on the order of 10%. This work therefore demonstrates an analytical theory capable of describing the encounter rates in compartmentalized environments for any level of confinement and any target density.

The study of soliton interactions is of significance for improving pulse qualities in nonlinear optics. In this paper, interaction between two solitons, which is governed by the Hirota equation, is considered. Via use of the Hirota method, an analytic soliton solution is obtained. Then a two-period vibration phenomenon is observed. Moreover, turning points of the coefficients of higher-order terms, which are related with sudden delaying or leading, are found and analyzed. With different coefficient constraints, soliton interactions are discussed by different frequency separation with the split-step Fourier method, and characteristics of soliton interactions are exhibited. Through turning points, we get a pair of solitons which tend to be bound solitons but not exactly. Furthermore, we control a pair of solitons to emit at different emission angles. The stability of the two-period vibration is analyzed. Results in this paper may be helpful for the applications of optical self-routing, waveguiding, and faster switching.

In this paper, a modified momentum exchange method for fluid-particle interactions is proposed based on the finite-volume lattice Boltzmann method. The idea of the improvement is to remove the restriction that the boundary points must be set as the midpoints of the grid lines or the intersection of the grid lines with the solid boundaries. The particle surface is represented by a set of arc (area) elements, and the interior fluid is used which the geometric conservation law is naturally satisfied. The interactions between fluid and arc (area) elements of particle boundary are considered using the momentum exchange method, and the mass of the fluid particles which collide with an arc (area) element is obtained by means of numerical integration in the control volume. The fluid field is corrected with the help of the smooth kernel function. Moreover, a generalized explicit time marching scheme is introduced to resolve the motion of particle in the problems with the ratio of particle density to fluid density is close to or less than 1. Finally, some numerical case studies of particle sedimentation are carried out to validate the present method. The corresponding results have a good agreement with the previous literature, which strongly demonstrates the capability of the improved method.

We study probability distribution of a steady state of a periodically driven system coupled to a thermal bath by using a quantum master equation in the weak-coupling limit. It is proved that, even when the external field is strong, the probability distribution is independent of the detailed nature of the thermal bath under the following conditions: (i) the Hamiltonian of the relevant system is bounded and the period of the driving field is short, (ii) the Hamiltonians for the driving field at different times commute, and (iii) the Hamiltonians of the driving field and of the interaction between the relevant system and the thermal bath commute. It is shown that the steady state is described by the Gibbs distribution of the Floquet states of the relevant system at the temperature of the thermal bath.

Nonstationary disordered materials and media, those for which the probability distribution function of any property varies spatially when shifted in space, are abundant and encountered in astrophysics, oceanography, air pollution patterns, large-scale porous media, biological tissues and organs, and composite materials. Their reconstruction and modeling is a notoriously difficult and largely unsolved problem. We propose a method for reconstructing a broad class of such media based on partitioning them into locally stationary zones. Two methods are used for the partitioning. One is based on the Shannon entropy, while the second method utilizes a watershed transform. The locally stationary zones are then reconstructed based on a cross-correlation function and one-dimensional raster path that we recently introduced [P. Tahmasebi and M. Sahimi, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 078002 (2013)], with overlaps between the zones to ensure seamless transition from one zone to another. A large number of examples, including porous media, ecological systems, disordered materials, and biological tissues and organs, are reconstructed and analyzed to demonstrate the accuracy of the method.

The surface forces arising in wetting films of nonpolar liquids or in thin air interlayers between an electrolyte and a nonpolar medium in the case of discrete charging of the dielectric-electrolyte interface are considered. The contributions of polarization effects to the distribution of the electrostatic potential in the three contacting media were calculated. Within the Debye-Hückel approximation, the analytical solutions were derived for the disjoining pressure in thin films, for the case of either dilute or relatively concentrated electrolyte solutions in the aforementioned systems. Analysis of the analytical and numerical results demonstrated that for dilute solutions the contribution of image forces to the disjoining pressure may significantly exceed the van der Waals forces for films from a few to tens of nanometers thick.

We propose a methodology to analyze synchronization in an ensemble of diffusively coupled multistable systems. First, we study how two bidirectionally coupled multistable oscillators synchronize and demonstrate the high complexity of the basins of attraction of coexisting synchronous states. Then, we propose the use of the master stability function (MSF) for multistable systems to describe synchronizability, even during intermittent behavior, of a network of multistable oscillators, regardless of both the number of coupled oscillators and the interaction structure. In particular, we show that a network of multistable elements is synchronizable for a given range of topology spectra and coupling strengths, irrespective of specific attractor dynamics to which different oscillators are locked, and even in the presence of intermittency. Finally, we experimentally demonstrate the feasibility and robustness of the MSF approach with a network of multistable electronic circuits.

We investigate through numerical simulation the nonstationary flow of a Newtonian fluid through a two-dimensional channel filled with an array of circular obstacles of distinct sizes. The disks may rotate around their respective centers, modeling a nonstationary, inhomogeneous porous medium. Obstacle sizes and positions are defined by the geometry of an Apollonian packing (AP). To allow for fluid flow, the radii of the disks are uniformly reduced by a factor $0.6\le s\le 0.8$ for assemblies corresponding to the four first AP generations. The investigation is targeted to elucidate the main features of the rotating regime as compared to the fixed disk condition. It comprises the evaluation of the region of validity of Darcy's law as well as the study of the nonlinear hydraulic resistance as a function of the channel Reynolds number, the reduction factor $s$, and the AP generation. Depending on a combination of these factors, the resistance of rotating disks may be larger or smaller than that of the corresponding static case. We also analyze the flow redistribution in the interdisk channels as a result of the rotation pattern and characterize the angular velocity of the disks. Here, the striking feature is the emergence of a stable oscillatory behavior of the angular velocity for almost all disks that are inserted into the assemblies after the second generation.

The stability of the circular Couette flow of a dielectric fluid is analyzed by a linear perturbation theory. The fluid is confined between two concentric cylindrical electrodes of infinite length with only the inner one rotating. A temperature difference and an alternating electric tension are applied to the electrodes to produce a radial dielectrophoretic body force that can induce convection in the fluid. We examine the effects of superposition of this thermoelectric force with the centrifugal force including its thermal variation. The Earth's gravity is neglected to focus on the situations of a vanishing Grashof number such as microgravity conditions. Depending on the electric field strength and of the temperature difference, critical modes are either axisymmetric or nonaxisymmetric, occurring in either stationary or oscillatory states. An energetic analysis is performed to determine the dominant destabilizing mechanism. When the inner cylinder is hotter than the outer one, the circular Couette flow is destabilized by the centrifugal force for weak and moderate electric fields. The critical mode is steady axisymmetric, except for weak fields within a certain range of the Prandtl number and of the radius ratio of the cylinders, where the mode is oscillatory and axisymmetric. The frequency of this oscillatory mode is correlated with a Brunt-Väisälä frequency due to the stratification of both the density and the electric permittivity of the fluid. Under strong electric fields, the destabilization by the dielectrophoretic force is dominant, leading to oscillatory nonaxisymmetric critical modes with a frequency scaled by the frequency of the inner-cylinder rotation. When the outer cylinder is hotter than the inner one, the instability is again driven by the centrifugal force. The critical mode is axisymmetric and either steady under weak electric fields or oscillatory under strong electric fields. The frequency of the oscillatory mode is also correlated with the Brunt-Väisälä frequency.

Gas slippage occurs when the mean free path of the gas molecules is in the order of the characteristic pore size of a porous medium. This phenomenon leads to Klinkenberg's effect where the measured permeability of a gas (apparent permeability) is higher than that of the liquid (intrinsic permeability). A generalized lattice Boltzmann model is proposed for flow through porous media that includes Klinkenberg's effect, which is based on the model of Guo et al. [Phys. Rev. E 65, 046308 (2002)]. The second-order Beskok and Karniadakis-Civan's correlation [A. Beskok and G. Karniadakis, Microscale Thermophys. Eng. 3, 43 (1999) and F. Civan, Transp. Porous Med. 82, 375 (2010)] is adopted to calculate the apparent permeability based on intrinsic permeability and the Knudsen number. Fluid flow between two parallel plates filled with porous media is simulated to validate the model. Simulations performed in a heterogeneous porous medium with components of different porosity and permeability indicate that Klinkenberg's effect plays a significant role on fluid flow in low-permeability porous media, and it is more pronounced as the Knudsen number increases. Fluid flow in a shale matrix with and without fractures is also studied, and it is found that the fractures greatly enhance the fluid flow and Klinkenberg's effect leads to higher global permeability of the shale matrix.

We consider the static properties of periodic structures in weak random disorder. We apply a functional renormalization group approach (FRG) and a Gaussian variational method (GVM) to study their displacement correlations. We focus in particular on the effects of temperature and we compute explicitly the crossover length scales separating different regimes in the displacement correlation function. We compare the FRG and GVM results and find excellent agreement. We show that the FRG predicts, in addition, the existence of a third length scale associated with the screening of the disorder by thermal fluctuations and discuss a protocol to observe it.