We investigate the mixing characteristics of dry granular material while draining down a silo with multiple exit orifices. The mixing in the silo, which otherwise consists of noninteracting stagnant and flowing regions, is observed to improve significantly when the flow through specific orifices is stopped intermittently. This momentary stoppage of flow through the orifice is either controlled manually or is chosen by the system itself when the orifice width is small enough to cause spontaneous jamming and unjamming. We observe that the overall mixing behavior shows a systematic dependence on the frequency of closing and opening of specific orifices. In particular, the silo configuration employing random jamming and unjamming of any of the orifices shows early evidence of chaotic mixing. When operated in a multipass mode, the system exhibits a practical and efficient way of mixing particles.

We report x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy experiments on a concentrated nanocolloidal gel subject to in situ oscillatory shear strain. The strain causes periodic echoes in the speckle pattern that lead to peaks in the intensity autocorrelation function. Above a threshold strain that is near the first yield point of the gel, the peak amplitude decays exponentially with the number of shear cycles, signaling irreversible particle rearrangements. The wave-vector dependence of the decay rate reveals a power-law distribution in the size of regions undergoing shear-induced rearrangement. The gel also displays strain softening well below the threshold, indicating a range of strains at which the rheology is nonlinear but the microscopic deformations are reversible.

A two-dimensional (2D) binary colloidal system consisting of interacting dipoles is investigated using an analytical approach. Within the harmonic approximation we obtain the phonon spectrum of the system as a function of the composition, dipole-moment ratio, and mass ratio between the small and big particles. Through a systematic analysis of the phonon spectra we are able to determine the stability region of the different lattice structures of the colloidal alloys. The gaps in the phonon frequency spectrum, the optical frequencies in the long-wavelength limit, and the sound velocity are discussed as well. Using the modified Lindemann criterion and within the harmonic approximation we estimate the melting temperature of the sublattice generated by the big particles.

We study the elastic properties of a rigid filament in a bath of self-propelled particles. We find that while fully flexible filaments swell monotonically upon increasing the strength of the propelling force, rigid filaments soften for moderate activities, collapse into metastable hairpins for intermediate strengths, and eventually reexpand when the strength of the activity of the surrounding fluid is large. This collapse and reexpansion of the filament with the bath activity is reminiscent of the behavior observed in polyelectrolytes in the presence of different concentrations of multivalent salt.

We explain in depth the previously proposed theory of the coherent van der Waals (cvdW) interaction, the counterpart of van der Waals (vdW) force, emerging in spatially coherently fluctuating electromagnetic fields. We show that cvdW driven matter is dominated by many-body interactions, which are significantly stronger than those found in standard van der Waals (vdW) systems. Remarkably, the leading two- and three-body interactions are of the same order with respect to the distance $(\propto R^{-6})$, in contrast to the usually weak vdW three-body effects $\left(\propto R^{-9}\right)$. From a microscopic theory we show that the anisotropic cvdW many-body interactions drive the formation of low-dimensional structures such as chains, membranes, and vesicles with very unusual, nonlocal properties. In particular, cvdW chains display a logarithmically growing stiffness with the chain length, while cvdW membranes have a bending modulus growing linearly with their size. We argue that the cvdW anisotropic many-body forces cause local cohesion but also a negative effective “surface tension.” We conclude by deriving the equation of state for cvdW materials and propose experiments to test the theory, in particular the unusual three-body nature of cvdW.

It has been shown recently that the coefficient of collective diffusion in a colloidal monolayer is divergent due to the hydrodynamic interactions mediated by the ambient fluid in bulk. The analysis is extended to allow for time-dependent hydrodynamic interactions. Observational features specific to this time dependency are predicted. The possible experimental detection in the dynamics of the monolayer is discussed.

We show that the problem of describing the conformations of a semiflexible polymer confined to a channel can be mapped onto an exactly solvable model in the so-called extended de Gennes regime. This regime (where the polymer is neither weakly nor strongly confined) has recently been intensively studied experimentally and by means of computer simulations. The exact solution predicts precisely how the conformational fluctuations depend upon the channel width and upon the microscopic parameters characterizing the physical properties of the polymer.

Information in measurements of a nonlinear dynamical system can be transferred to a quantitative model of the observed system to establish its fixed parameters and unobserved state variables. After this learning period is complete, one may predict the model response to new forces and, when successful, these predictions will match additional observations. This adjustment process encounters problems when the model is nonlinear and chaotic because dynamical instability impedes the transfer of information from the data to the model when the number of measurements at each observation time is insufficient. We discuss the use of information in the waveform of the data, realized through a time delayed collection of measurements, to provide additional stability and accuracy to this search procedure. Several examples are explored, including a few familiar nonlinear dynamical systems and small networks of Colpitts oscillators.

The shock Hugoniot for lithium 6 deuteride $\left({}^6\mathrm{LiD}\right)$ was calculated via first principles using Kohn-Sham density-functional theory molecular dynamics (KSMD) for temperatures of 0.5–25 eV. The upper limit of 25 eV represents a practical limit where KSMD is no longer computationally feasible due to the number of electronic bands which are required to be populated. To push the Hugoniot calculations to higher temperatures we make use of orbital-free density-functional theory molecular dynamics (OFMD). Thomas-Fermi-Dirac–based OFMD gives a poor description of the electronic structure at low temperatures so the initial state is not well defined. We propose a method of bootstrapping the Hugoniot from OFMD to the Hugoniot from KSMD between 10 and 20 eV, where the two methods are in agreement. The combination of KSMD and OFMD allows construction of a first-principles Hugoniot from the initial state to 1000 eV. Theoretical shock-compression results are in good agreement with available experimental data and exhibit the appropriate high-temperature limits. We show that a unified KSMD-OFMD Hugoniot can be used to assess the quality of the existing equation-of-state (EOS) models and inform better EOS models based on justifiable physics.

We use high-order cumulants to investigate the Lee-Yang zeros of generating functions of dynamical observables in open quantum systems. At long times the generating functions take on a large-deviation form with singularities of the associated cumulant generating functions—or dynamical free energies—signifying phase transitions in the ensemble of dynamical trajectories. We consider a driven three-level system as well as the dissipative Ising model. Both systems exhibit dynamical intermittency in the statistics of quantum jumps. From the short-time behavior of the dynamical Lee-Yang zeros, we identify critical values of the counting field which we attribute to the observed intermittency and dynamical phase coexistence. Furthermore, for the dissipative Ising model we construct a trajectory phase diagram and estimate the value of the transverse field where the stationary state changes from being ferromagnetic (inactive) to paramagnetic (active).

We define a random-matrix ensemble given by the infinite-time covariance matrices of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes at different temperatures coupled by a Gaussian symmetric matrix. The spectral properties of this ensemble are shown to be in qualitative agreement with some stylized facts of financial markets. Through the presented model formulas are given for the analysis of heterogeneous time series. Furthermore evidence for a localization transition in eigenvectors related to small and large eigenvalues in cross-correlations analysis of this model is found, and a simple explanation of localization phenomena in financial time series is provided. Finally we identify both in our model and in real financial data an inverted-bell effect in correlation between localized components and their local temperature: high- and low-temperature components are the most localized ones.

We consider the inelastic Maxwell model, which consists of a collection of particles that are characterized by only their velocities and evolving through binary collisions and external driving. At any instant, a particle is equally likely to collide with any of the remaining particles. The system evolves in continuous time with mutual collisions and driving taken to be point processes with rates ${\tau }_c^{-1}$ and ${\tau }_w^{-1}$, respectively. The mutual collisions conserve momentum and are inelastic, with a coefficient of restitution $r$. The velocity change of a particle with velocity $v$, due to driving, is taken to be $\Delta v=-(1+r_w)v+\eta$, where $r_w\in [-1,1]$ and $\eta$ is Gaussian white noise. For $r_w\in (0,1]$, this driving mechanism mimics the collision with a randomly moving wall, where $r_w$ is the coefficient of restitution. Another special limit of this driving is the so-called Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process given by $\frac{dv}{dt}=-\Gamma v+\eta$. We show that while the equations for the $n$-particle velocity distribution functions ($n=1,2,...$) do not close, the joint evolution equations of the variance and the two-particle velocity correlation functions close. With the exact formula for the variance we find that, for $r_w\ne -1$, the system goes to a steady state. Also we obtain the exact tail of the velocity distribution in the steady state. On the other hand, for $r_w=-1$, the system does not have a steady state. Similarly, the system goes to a steady state for the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck driving with $\Gamma \ne 0$, whereas for the purely diffusive driving ($\Gamma =0$), the system does not have a steady state.

The general equation of nonequilibrium reversible-irreversible coupling (GENERIC) is studied in light of time-reversal transformation. It is shown that Onsager-Casimir reciprocal relations are implied by GENERIC in the near-equilibrium regime. A general structure which gives the reciprocal relations but which is valid also far from equilibrium is identified, and Onsager-Casimir reciprocal relations are generalized to far-from-equilibrium regime in this sense. Moreover, reversibility and irreversibility are carefully discussed and the results are illustrated in Hamiltonian dynamics, classical hydrodynamics, classical irreversible thermodynamics, the quantum master equation, and the Boltzmann equation.

Low-frequency oscillations (LFOs) are thought to play an important role in the transition between the Leidenfrost and convective states of a vibrated granular bed. This work details the experimental observation of LFOs, which are found to be consistently present for a range of driving frequencies and amplitudes, with particles of varying material and using containers of differing material properties. The experimentally acquired results show a close qualitative and quantitative agreement with both theory and simulations across the range of parameters tested. Strong agreement between experimental and simulation results was also observed when investigating the influence of sidewall dissipation on LFOs and vertical density profiles. This paper additionally provides evidence of two phenomena present in the Leidenfrost state: a circulatory motion over extended time periods in near-crystalline configurations, and a Leidenfrost-like state in which the dense upper region displays an unusual inverse thermal convection.

We study the plastic deformation of bulk metallic glasses with shear transformation zone (STZ) theory, a physical model for plasticity in amorphous systems, and compare it with experimental data. In STZ theory, plastic deformation occurs when localized regions rearrange due to applied stress and the density of these regions is determined by a dynamically evolving effective disorder temperature. We compare the predictions of STZ theory to experiments that explore the low-temperature deformation of Zr-based bulk metallic glasses via shear bands at various thermal temperatures and strain rates. By following the evolution of effective temperature with time, strain rate, and temperature through a series of approximate and numerical solutions to the STZ equations, we successfully model a suite of experimentally observed phenomena, including shear-band aging as apparent from slide-hold-slide tests, a temperature-dependent steady-state flow stress, and a strain-rate- and temperature-dependent transition from stick-slip (serrated flow) to steady-sliding (nonserrated flow). We find that STZ theory quantitatively matches the observed experimental data and provides a framework for relating the experimentally measured energy scales to different types of atomic rearrangements.

Protein machines often exhibit long-range interplay between different sites in order to achieve their biological tasks. We investigate and characterize the nonlinear energy localization and the basic mechanisms of energy transfer in protein devices. By studying two different model protein machines, with different biological functions, we show that genuinely nonlinear phenomena are responsible for energy transport between the different machine sites involved in the biological functions. The energy transfer turns out to be extremely efficient from an energetic point of view: by changing the energy initially provided to the model device, we identify a well defined range of energies where the time for the energy transport to occur is minimal and the amount of transferred energy is a maximum. Furthermore, by introducing an implicit solvent, we show that the energy is localized on the internal residues of the protein structure, thus minimizing the dissipation.

Adsorption of proteins on membrane surfaces plays an important role in cell biological processes. In this work, we develop a two-dimensional fluid model for proteins. The protein molecules have been modeled as two-dimensional convex and soft particles. The Lennard-Jones potential for circular particles and Kihara (12,6) potential for elliptical particles with hard core have been used to model pairwise intermolecular interactions. The equation of state of the fluid model has been derived using Weeks-Chandler-Andersen decomposition and it involves three parameters, an attraction, a repulsion, and a size parameter, which depend on the shape and core size of the molecules. For validation of the model, a two-dimensional molecular dynamics simulation has been performed. Finally, the model has been applied to study the adsorption of proteins on a flat membrane. In comparison with the existing model of hard and convex particles for protein adsorption, our model predicts a higher packing fraction for the adsorption equilibria. Although the present work is based on Lennard-Jones-type interaction, it can be extended for other specific soft interactions between convex molecules. Thus the model has general applicability for any other two-dimensional adsorption systems of molecules with soft interaction.

The most important characteristics of the fragmentation of heterogeneous solids is that the mass (size) distribution of pieces is described by a power law functional form. The exponent of the distribution displays a high degree of universality depending mainly on the dimensionality and on the brittle-ductile mechanical response of the system. Recently, experiments and computer simulations have reported an energy dependence of the exponent increasing with the imparted energy. These novel findings question the phase transition picture of fragmentation phenomena, and have also practical importance for industrial applications. Based on large scale computer simulations here we uncover a robust mechanism which leads to the emergence of energy dependence in fragmentation processes resolving controversial issues on the problem: studying the impact induced breakup of platelike objects with varying thickness in three dimensions we show that energy dependence occurs when a lower dimensional fragmenting object is embedded into a higher dimensional space. The reason is an underlying transition between two distinct fragmentation mechanisms controlled by the impact velocity at low plate thicknesses, while it is hindered for three-dimensional bulk systems. The mass distributions of the subsets of fragments dominated by the two cracking mechanisms proved to have an astonishing robustness at all plate thicknesses, which implies that the nonuniversality of the complete mass distribution is the consequence of blending the contributions of universal partial processes.

We consider a canonical ensemble of synchronization-optimized networks of identical oscillators under external noise. By performing a Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation using the Kirchhoff index, i.e., the sum of the inverse eigenvalues of the Laplacian matrix (as a graph Hamiltonian of the network), we construct more than 1 000 different synchronization-optimized networks. We then show that the transition from star to core-periphery structure depends on the connectivity of the network, and is characterized by the node degree variance of the synchronization-optimized ensemble. We find that thermodynamic properties such as heat capacity show anomalies for sparse networks.