A recent proposal in which the equation of state of a polydisperse hard-sphere mixture is mapped onto that of the one-component fluid is extrapolated beyond the freezing point to estimate the jamming packing fraction ${\varphi }_{\mathrm{J}}$ of the polydisperse system as a simple function of $M_1{M}_3/M_2^2$, where $M_k$ is the $k$th moment of the size distribution. An analysis of experimental and simulation data of ${\varphi }_{\mathrm{J}}$ for a large number of different mixtures shows a remarkable general agreement with the theoretical estimate. To give extra support to the procedure, simulation data for seventeen mixtures in the high-density region are used to infer the equation of state of the pure hard-sphere system in the metastable region. An excellent collapse of the inferred curves up to the glass transition and a significant narrowing of the different out-of-equilibrium glass branches all the way to jamming are observed. Thus, the present approach provides an extremely simple criterion to unify in a common framework and to give coherence to data coming from very different polydisperse hard-sphere mixtures.

Many complex systems demand manifold resources to be supplied from distinct channels to function properly, e.g., water, gas, and electricity for a city. Here, we study a model for viability of such systems demanding more than one type of vital resource be produced and distributed by resource nodes in multiplex networks. We found a rich variety of behaviors such as discontinuity, bistability, and hysteresis in the fraction of viable nodes with respect to the density of networks and the fraction of resource nodes. Our result suggests that viability in multiplex networks is not only exposed to the risk of abrupt collapse but also suffers excessive complication in recovery.

We investigate generalized Sherrington–Kirkpatrick glassy systems without reflection symmetry. In the neighborhood of the transition temperature, we, in general, uncover the structure of the glass state building the full-replica-symmetry-breaking solution. A physical example of the explicitly constructed solution is given.

The influence of contact friction on the behavior of dense, polydisperse granular assemblies under uniaxial (oedometric) loading and unloading deformation is studied using discrete element simulations. Even though the uniaxial deformation protocol is one of the “simplest” element tests possible, the evolution of the structural anisotropy necessitates its careful analysis and understanding, since it is the source of interesting and unexpected observations. On the macroscopic, homogenized, continuum scale, the deviatoric stress ratio and the deviatoric fabric, i.e., the microstructure behave in a different fashion during uniaxial loading and unloading. The maximal stress ratio and strain increase with increasing contact friction. In contrast, the deviatoric fabric reaches its maximum at a unique strain level independent of friction, with the maximal value decreasing with friction. For unloading, both stress and fabric respond to unloading strain with a friction-dependent delay but at different strains. On the micro-level, a friction-dependent non-symmetry of the proportion of weak (strong) and sliding (sticking) contacts with respect to the total contacts during loading and unloading is observed. Coupled to this, from the directional probability distribution, the “memory” and history-dependent behavior of granular systems is confirmed. Surprisingly, while a rank-2 tensor is sufficient to describe the evolution of the normal force directions, a sixth order harmonic approximation is necessary to describe the probability distribution of contacts, tangential force, and mobilized friction. We conclude that the simple uniaxial deformation activates microscopic phenomena not only in the active Cartesian directions, but also at intermediate orientations, with the tilt angle being dependent on friction, so that this microstructural features cause the interesting, nontrivial macroscopic behavior.

The phenomenon of electrowetting, i.e., the dependence of the macroscopic contact angle of a fluid on the electrostatic potential of the substrate, is analyzed in terms of the density functional theory of wetting. It is shown that electrowetting is not an electrocapillarity effect, i.e., it cannot be consistently understood in terms of the variation of the substrate-fluid interfacial tension with the electrostatic substrate potential, but it is related to the depth of the effective interface potential. The key feature, which has been overlooked so far and which occurs naturally in the density functional approach, is the structural change of a fluid if it is brought into contact with another fluid. These structural changes occur in the present context as the formation of finite films of one fluid phase in between the substrate and the bulk of the other fluid phase. The nonvanishing Donnan potentials (Galvani potential differences) across such film-bulk fluid interfaces, which generically occur due to an unequal partitioning of ions as a result of differences of solubility contrasts, lead to correction terms in the electrowetting equation, which become relevant for sufficiently small substrate potentials. Whereas the present density functional approach confirms the commonly used electrocapillarity-based electrowetting equation as a good approximation for the cases of metallic electrodes or electrodes coated with a hydrophobic dielectric in contact with an electrolyte solution and an ion-free oil, a significantly reduced tendency for electrowetting is predicted for electrodes coated with a dielectric which is hydrophilic or which is in contact with two immiscible electrolyte solutions.

We analyze the flow of information in multiplex networks by means of the communicability function. First, we generalize this measure from its definition from simple graphs to multiplex networks. Then, we study its relevance for the analysis of real-world systems by studying a social multiplex where information flows using formal-informal channels and an air transportation system where the layers represent different air companies. Accordingly, the communicability, which is essential for the good performance of these complex systems, emerges at a systemic operation point in the multiplex where the performance of the layers operates in a coordinated way very differently from the state represented by a collection of unconnected networks.

Evolutionary games are studied here with two types of players located on a chessboard or on a bipartite random regular graph. Each player's income comes from matching-pennies games played with the four neighbors. The players can modify their own strategies according to a myopic strategy update resembling the Glauber dynamics for the kinetic Ising model. This dynamical rule drives the system into a stationary state where the two strategies are present with the same probability without correlations between the nearest neighbors while a weak correlation is induced between the second and the third neighbors. In stationary states, the deviation from the detailed balance is quantified by the evaluation of entropy production. Finally, our analysis is extended to evolutionary games where the uniform pair interactions are composed of an anticoordination game and a weak matching-pennies game. This system preserves the Ising type order-disorder transitions at a critical noise level decreasing with the strength of the matching-pennies component for both networks.

We study the turbulent evolution originated from a system subjected to a Rayleigh-Taylor instability with a double density at high resolution in a two-dimensional geometry using a highly optimized thermal lattice-Boltzmann code for GPUs. Our investigation's initial condition, given by the superposition of three layers with three different densities, leads to the development of two Rayleigh-Taylor fronts that expand upward and downward and collide in the middle of the cell. By using high-resolution numerical data we highlight the effects induced by the collision of the two turbulent fronts in the long-time asymptotic regime. We also provide details on the optimized lattice-Boltzmann code that we have run on a cluster of GPUs.

Using the field-theoretic renormalization group technique in the two-loop approximation, the influence of helicity (spatial parity violation) on the turbulent vector Prandtl number is investigated in the model of a passive vector field advected by the turbulent helical environment driven by the stochastic Navier-Stokes equation. It is shown that the presence of helicity in the turbulent environment can significantly decrease the value of the turbulent vector Prandtl number by up to $15\%$ of its nonhelical value. This result is compared to the corresponding results obtained recently for the turbulent Prandtl number of a passively advected scalar quantity as well as for the turbulent magnetic Prandtl number of a weak magnetic field in the framework of the kinematic magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. It is shown that the behavior of the turbulent vector Prandtl number as function of the helicity parameter is much closer to the corresponding behavior of the turbulent Prandtl number of the scalar quantity than to the behavior of the turbulent magnetic Prandtl number.

The nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation is widely used in natural science. Various nonlinear excitations of the NLS equation have been found by many methods. However, except for the soliton-soliton interactions, it is very difficult to find interaction solutions between different types of nonlinear excitations. In this paper, the symmetry reduction method is further developed to find interaction solutions between solitons and other types of NLS waves. Especially, the soliton-cnoidal wave interaction solutions are explicitly studied in terms of the Jacobi elliptic functions and the third type of incomplete elliptic integrals. Some special concrete interaction solutions and their asymptotic behaviors are discussed both in analytical and graphical ways.

The critical behavior of two-dimensional $n$-vector $\lambda {\varphi }^4$ field model is studied within the framework of pseudo-$\epsilon$ expansion approach. Pseudo-$\epsilon$ expansions for Wilson fixed-point location $g^{*}$ and critical exponents originating from five-loop two-dimensional renormalization-group series are derived. Numerical estimates obtained within Padé and Padé-Borel resummation procedures as well as by direct summation are presented for $n=1$, $n=0$, and $n=-1$, i.e., for the models which are exactly solvable. The pseudo-$\epsilon$ expansions for $g^{*}$, critical exponents $\gamma$, and $\nu$ have small lower-order coefficients and slow increasing higher-order ones. As a result, direct summation of these series with optimal cutoff provides numerical estimates that are no worse than those given by the resummation approaches mentioned. This enables one to consider the pseudo-$\epsilon$ expansion technique itself as some specific resummation method.

Long-lived quantum coherence in photosynthetic pigment-protein complexes has recently been reported at physiological temperature. It has been pointed out that the discrete vibrational modes may be responsible for the long-lived coherence. Here, we propose an analytical non-Markovian model to explain the origin of the long-lived coherence in pigment-protein complexes. We show that the memory effect of the discrete vibrational modes produces a long oscillating tail in the coherence. We further use the recently proposed measure to quantify the non-Markovianity of the system and find out the prolonged coherence is highly correlated to it.

In a new type of percolation phase transition, which was observed in a set of nonequilibrium models, each new connection between vertices is chosen from a number of possibilities by an Achlioptas-like algorithm. This causes preferential merging of small components and delays the emergence of the percolation cluster. First simulations led to a conclusion that a percolation cluster in this irreversible process is born discontinuously, by a discontinuous phase transition, which results in the term “explosive percolation transition.” We have shown that this transition is actually continuous (second order) though with an anomalously small critical exponent of the percolation cluster. Here we propose an efficient numerical method enabling us to find the critical exponents and other characteristics of this second-order transition for a representative set of explosive percolation models with different number of choices. The method is based on gluing together the numerical solutions of evolution equations for the cluster size distribution and power-law asymptotics. For each of the models, with high precision, we obtain critical exponents and the critical point.

To overcome limitations of using a single fixed time step in random walk simulations, such as those that rely on the classic Wiener approach, we have developed an algorithm for exploring random walks based on random temporal steps that are uniformly distributed in logarithmic time. This improvement enables us to generate random-walk trajectories of probe particles that span a highly extended dynamic range in time, thereby facilitating the exploration of probe motion in soft viscoelastic materials. By combining this faster approach with a Maxwell-Voigt model (MVM) of linear viscoelasticity, based on a slowly diffusing harmonically bound Brownian particle, we rapidly create trajectories of spherical probes in soft viscoelastic materials over more than 12 orders of magnitude in time. Appropriate windowing of these trajectories over different time intervals demonstrates that random walk for the MVM is neither self-similar nor self-affine, even if the viscoelastic material is isotropic. We extend this approach to spatially anisotropic viscoelastic materials, using binning to calculate the anisotropic mean square displacements and creep compliances along different orthogonal directions. The elimination of a fixed time step in simulations of random processes, including random walks, opens up interesting possibilities for modeling dynamics and response over a highly extended temporal dynamic range.

Self-exciting point processes describe the manner in which every event facilitates the occurrence of succeeding events, as in the case of epidemics or human activity. By increasing excitability, the event occurrences start to exhibit bursts even in the absence of external stimuli. We revealed that the transition is uniquely determined by the average number of events added by a single event, $1-1/\sqrt{2}\approx 0.2929$, independently of the temporal excitation profile. We further extended the theory to multidimensional processes, to be able to incite or inhibit bursting in networks of agents by altering their connections.

When two viruses compete for healthy nodes in a simple network and both spreading rates are above the epidemic threshold, only one virus will survive. However, if we prevent the viruses from dying out, rich dynamics emerge. When both viruses are identical, one virus always dominates the other, but the dominating and dominated virus alternate. We show in the complete graph that the domination time depends on the total number of infected nodes at the beginning of the domination period and, moreover, that the distribution of the domination time decays exponentially yet slowly. When the viruses differ moderately in strength and/or speed the weaker and/or slower virus can still dominate the other but for a short time. Interestingly, depending on the number of infected nodes at the start of a domination period, being quicker can be a disadvantage.

“Diffuse interface” theories for single-component fluids—dating back to van der Waals, Korteweg, Cahn-Hilliard, and many others—are currently based upon an ad hoc combination of thermodynamic principles (built largely upon Helmholtz's free-energy potential) and so-called “nonclassical” continuum-thermomechanical principles (built largely upon Newtonian mechanics), with the latter originating with the pioneering work of Dunn and Serrin [Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 88, 95 (1985)]. By introducing into the equation governing the transport of energy the notion of an interstitial work-flux contribution, above and beyond the usual Fourier heat-flux contribution, namely, ${\mathbf{j}}_q=-k\nabla T$, to the energy flux, Dunn and Serrin provided a rational continuum-thermomechanical basis for the presence of Korteweg stresses in the equation governing the transport of linear momentum in compressible fluids. Nevertheless, by their failing to recognize the existence and fundamental need for an independent volume transport equation [Brenner, Physica A 349, 11 (2005)]—especially for the roles played therein by the diffuse volume flux ${\mathbf{j}}_v$ and the rate of production of volume ${\pi }_v$ at a point of the fluid continuum—we argue that diffuse interface theories for fluids stand today as being both ad hoc and incomplete owing to their failure to recognize the need for an independent volume transport equation for the case of compressible fluids. In contrast, we point out that bivelocity hydrodynamics, as it already exists [Brenner, Phys. Rev. E 86, 016307 (2012)], provides a rational, non-ad hoc, and comprehensive theory of diffuse interfaces, not only for single-component fluids, but also for certain classes of crystalline solids [Danielewski and Wierzba, J. Phase Equilib. Diffus. 26, 573 (2005)]. Furthermore, we provide not only what we believe to be the correct constitutive equation for the Korteweg stress in the class of fluids that are constitutively Newtonian in their rheological response to imposed stresses but, equally importantly, we establish the explicit functional forms of Korteweg's phenomenological thermocapillary coefficients appearing therein.

A three-term mixed subgrid-scale (SGS) stress model is proposed for large-eddy simulation (LES) of helical turbulence. The new model includes a Smagorinsky-Lilly term, a velocity gradient term, and a symmetric vorticity gradient term. The model coefficients are determined by minimizing the mean square error between the realistic and modeled Leonard stresses under a joint constraint of kinetic energy and helicity fluxes. The model formulated as such is referred to as joint-constraint dynamic three-term model (JCD3TM). First, the new model is evaluated a priori using the direct numerical simulation (DNS) data of homogeneous isotropic turbulence with helical forcing. It is shown that the SGS dissipation fractions from all three terms in JCD3TM have the properties of length-scale invariance in inertial subrange. JCD3TM can predict the SGS stresses, energy flux, and helicity flux more accurately than the dynamic Smagorinsky model (DSM) and dynamic mixed helical model (DMHM) in both pointwise and statistical senses. Then, the performance of JCD3TM is tested a posteriori in LESs of both forced and freely decaying helical isotropic turbulence. It is found that JCD3TM possesses certain features of superiority over the other two models in predicting the energy spectrum, helicity spectrum, high-order statistics, etc. It is also noteworthy that JCD3TM is capable of simulating the evolutions of both energy and helicity spectra more precisely than other models in decaying helical turbulence. We claim that the present SGS model can capture the main helical features of turbulent motions and may serve as a useful tool for LES of helical turbulent flows.

Prediction of the stress on the surface of an arbitrarily shaped particle of soft material is essential in the study of elastic properties of the particles with optical force. It is also necessary in the manipulation and sorting of small particles with optical tweezers, since a regular-shaped particle, such as a sphere, may be deformed under the nonuniform optical stress on its surface. The stress profile on a spherical or small spheroidal soft particle trapped by shaped beams has been studied, however little work on computing the surface stress of an irregular-shaped particle has been reported. We apply in this paper the surface integral equation with multilevel fast multipole algorithm to compute the surface stress on soft homogeneous arbitrarily shaped particles. The comparison of the computed stress profile with that predicted by the generalized Lorenz-Mie theory for a water droplet of diameter equal to 51 wavelengths in a focused Gaussian beam show that the precision of our method is very good. Then stress profiles on spheroids with different aspect ratios are computed. The particles are illuminated by a Gaussian beam of different waist radius at different incidences. Physical analysis on the mechanism of optical stress is given with help of our recently developed vectorial complex ray model. It is found that the maximum of the stress profile on the surface of prolate spheroids is not only determined by the reflected and refracted rays (orders $p=0,1$) but also the rays undergoing one or two internal reflections where they focus. Computational study of stress on surface of a biconcave cell-like particle, which is a typical application in life science, is also undertaken.

Aging, the dependence of the dynamics of a physical process on the time $t_a$ since its original preparation, is observed in systems ranging from the motion of charge carriers in amorphous semiconductors over the blinking dynamics of quantum dots to the tracer dispersion in living biological cells. Here we study the effects of aging on one of the most fundamental properties of a stochastic process, the first-passage dynamics. We find that for an aging continuous time random walk process, the scaling exponent of the density of first-passage times changes twice as the aging progresses and reveals an intermediate scaling regime. The first-passage dynamics depends on $t_a$ differently for intermediate and strong aging. Similar crossovers are obtained for the first-passage dynamics for a confined and driven particle. Comparison to the motion of an aged particle in the quenched trap model with a bias shows excellent agreement with our analytical findings. Our results demonstrate how first-passage measurements can be used to unravel the age $t_a$ of a physical system.