We present a prototype of behavior of glassy systems driven by quantum dynamics in a quenching protocol by analyzing the random energy model in a transverse field. We calculate several types of dynamical quantum amplitude and find a freezing transition at some critical time. The behavior is understood by the partition-function zeros in the complex temperature plane. We discuss the properties of the freezing phase as a dynamical chaotic phase, which are contrasted to those of the spin-glass phase in the static system.

To establish the bond-site duality of explosive percolations in two dimensions, the site and bond explosive-percolation models are carefully defined on a square lattice. By studying the cluster distribution function and the behavior of the second largest cluster, it is shown that the duality in which the transition is discontinuous exists for the pairs of the site model and the corresponding bond model which relatively enhances the intrabond occupation. In contrast the intrabond-suppressed models which have no corresponding site models undergo a continuous transition and satisfy the normal scaling ansatz as ordinary percolation.

We present a general framework for systems which are prepared in a nonstationary nonequilibrium state in the absence of any perturbation and which are then further driven through the application of a time-dependent perturbation. By assumption, the evolution of the system must be described by Markovian dynamics. We distinguish two different situations depending on the way the nonequilibrium state is prepared; either it is created by some driving or it results from a relaxation following some initial nonstationary conditions. Our approach is based on a recent generalization of the Hatano-Sasa relation for nonstationary probability distributions. We also investigate whether a form of the second law holds for separate parts of the entropy production and for any nonstationary reference process, a question motivated by the work of M. Esposito et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 090601 (2010)]. We find that although the special structure of the theorems derived in this reference is not recovered in the general case, detailed fluctuation theorems still hold separately for parts of the entropy production. These detailed fluctuation theorems contain interesting generalizations of the second law of thermodynamics for nonequilibrium systems.

Cellular networks may be found in a variety of natural contexts, from soap foams to biological tissues to grain boundaries in a polycrystal, and the characterization of these structures is therefore a subject of interest to a range of disciplines. An approach to describe the topology of a cellular network in two and three dimensions is presented. This allows for the quantification of a variety of features of the cellular network, including a quantification of topological disorder and a robust measure of the statistical similarity or difference of a set of structures. The results of this analysis are presented for numerous simulated systems including the Poisson-Voronoi and the steady-state grain growth structures in two and three dimensions.

Using Monte Carlo simulations, we show that the autocorrelation function $C\left(t\right)$ in the $d=3$ Ising model with a plaquette interaction has a stretched-exponential decay in a supercooled liquid phase. Such a decay characterizes also some ground-state probability distributions obtained from the numerically exact counting of up to ${10}^{450}$ configurations. A related model with a strongly degenerate ground state but lacking glassy features does not exhibit such a decay. Although the stretched exponential decay of $C\left(t\right)$ in the three-dimensional supercooled liquid is inconsistent with the droplet model, its modification that considers tensionless droplets might explain such a decay. An indication that tensionless droplets might play some role comes from the analysis of low-temperature domains that compose the glassy state. It shows that the energy of a domain of size $l$ scales as $l^{1.15}$, hence these domains are indeed tensionless.

Two coarse-grained models which capture some universal characteristics of stripe forming systems are studied. At high temperatures, the structure factors of both models attain their maxima on a circle in reciprocal space, as a consequence of generic isotropic competing interactions. Although this is known to lead to some universal properties, we show that the phase diagrams have important differences, which are a consequence of the particular $\vec{k}$ dependence of the fluctuation spectrum in each model. The phase diagrams are computed in a mean field approximation and also after inclusion of small fluctuations, which are shown to modify drastically the mean field behavior. Observables like the modulation length and magnetization profiles are computed for the whole temperature range accessible to both models and some important differences in behavior are observed. A stripe compression modulus is computed, showing an anomalous behavior with temperature as recently reported in related models. Also, a recently proposed scaling hypothesis for modulated systems is tested and found to be valid for both models studied.

We perform an analytical and numerical study of the phase transitions in three-dimensional Z$\left(N\right)$ lattice gauge theories at finite temperature for $N>4$, exploiting equivalence of these models with a generalized version of the two-dimensional vector Potts models in the limit of vanishing spatial coupling. In this limit the Polyakov loops play the role of Z$\left(N\right)$ spins. The effective couplings of these two-dimensional spin models are calculated explicitly. It is argued that the effective spin models have two phase transitions of BKT type. This is confirmed by large-scale Monte Carlo simulations. Using a cluster algorithm we locate the position of the critical points and study the critical behavior across both phase transitions in details. In particular, we determine various critical indices and compute the helicity modulus, the average action, and the specific heat. A scaling formula for the critical points with $N$ is proposed.

We study how the presence of committed vaccinators, a small fraction of individuals who consistently hold the vaccinating strategy and are immune to influence, impact the vaccination dynamics in well-mixed and spatially structured populations. For this purpose, we develop an epidemiological game-theoretic model of a flu-like vaccination by integrating an epidemiological process into a simple agent-based model of adaptive learning, where individuals (except for those committed ones) use anecdotal evidence to estimate costs and benefits of vaccination. We show that the committed vaccinators, acting as “steadfast role models” in the populations, can efficiently avoid the clustering of susceptible individuals and stimulate other imitators to take vaccination, hence contributing to the promotion of vaccine uptake. We substantiate our findings by making comparative studies of our model on a full lattice and on a randomly diluted one. Our work is expected to provide valuable information for decision-making and design more effective disease-control strategy.

We theoretically calculate the average fraction of frozen particles in rectangular systems of arbitrary dimensions for the Kob-Andersen and Fredrickson-Andersen kinetically constrained models. We find the aspect ratio of the rectangle's length to width, which distinguishes short, square-like rectangles from long, tunnel-like rectangles, and show how changing it can effect the jamming transition. We find how the critical vacancy density converges to zero in infinite systems for different aspect ratios: For long and wide channels it decreases algebraically $v_c\sim W^{-1/2}$ with the system's width $W$, while in square systems it decreases logarithmically $v_c\sim 1/\ln L$ with length $L$. Although derived for asymptotically wide rectangles, our analytical results agree with numerical data for systems as small as $W\approx 10$.

We investigate the canonical equilibrium of systems with long-range forces in competition. These forces create a modulation in the interaction potential and modulated phases appear at the system scale. The structure of these phases differentiate this system from monotonic potentials, where only the mean-field and disordered phases exist. With increasing temperature, the system switches from one ordered phase to another through a first-order phase transition. Both mean-field and modulated phases may be stable, even at zero temperature, and the long-range nature of the interaction will lead to metastability characterized by extremely long time scales.

In this paper, we study the influence of platinum (100) surface morphology on the tangential-momentum accommodation coefficient with argon using a molecular dynamics method. The coefficient is computed directly by beaming Ar atoms onto the surfaces and measuring the relative momentum changes. The wall is maintained at a constant temperature and its interaction with the gas atoms is governed by the Kulginov potential. To capture correctly the surface effect of the walls and the atoms' trajectories, the quantum Sutton-Chen multibody potential is employed between the Pt atoms. The effects of wall surface morphology, incident direction, and temperature are considered in this work and provide full information on the gas-wall interaction.

The dynamical behavior of single-component two-dimensional colloidal crystals confined in a slit geometry is studied by Langevin dynamics simulation of a simple model. The colloids are modeled as pointlike particles, interacting with the repulsive part of the Lennard-Jones potential, and the fluid molecules in the colloidal suspension are not explicitly considered. Considering a crystalline strip of triangular lattice structure with $n=30$ rows, the (one-dimensional) walls confining the strip are chosen as two rigidly fixed crystalline rows at each side, commensurate with the lattice structure and, thus, stabilizing long-range order. The case when the spacing between the walls is incommensurate with the ideal triangular lattice is also studied, where (due to a transition in the number of rows, $n\to n-1$) the confined crystal is incommensurate with the confining boundaries, and a soliton staircase forms along the walls. It is shown that mean-square displacements (MSDs) of particles as a function of time show an overshoot and then saturate at a horizontal plateau in the commensurate case, the value of the plateau being largest in the center of the strip. Conversely, when solitons are present, MSDs are largest in the rows containing the solitons, and all MSDs do not settle down at well-defined plateaus in the direction parallel to the boundaries, due to the lack of positional long-range order in ideal two-dimensional crystals. The MSDs of the solitons (which can be treated like quasiparticles at very low temperature) have also been studied and their dynamics are found to be about an order of magnitude slower than that of the colloidal particles themselves. Finally, transport of individual colloidal particles by diffusion processes is studied: both standard vacancy-interstitial pair formation and cooperative ring rotation processes are identified. These processes require thermal activation, with activation energies of the order of $10T_m$ ($T_m$ being the melting temperature of the crystal), while the motions due to long-wavelength phonons decrease only linearly in temperature.

A nonlinear phase-field model is proposed for modeling microstructure evolution during highly nonequilibrium processes. We consider electrochemical reactions at electrode-electrolyte interfaces leading to electroplating and electrode-electrolyte interface evolution. In contrast to all existing phase-field models, the rate of temporal phase-field evolution and thus the interface motion in the current model is considered nonlinear with respect to the thermodynamic driving force. It produces Butler-Volmer-type electrochemical kinetics for the dependence of interfacial velocity on the overpotential at the sharp-interface limit. At the low overpotential it recovers the conventional Allen-Cahn phase-field equation. This model is generally applicable to many other highly nonequilibrium processes where linear kinetics breaks down.

We demonstrate theoretically that the presence of ions in insulating materials such as nematic liquid crystals may be responsible for the dielectric spectroscopy behavior observed experimentally. It is shown that, at low frequencies, an essentially non-Debye relaxation process takes place due to surface effects. This is accomplished by investigating the effects of the adsorption-desorption process on the electrical response of an electrolytic cell when the generation and recombination of ions is present. The adsorption-desorption is governed by a non-usual kinetic equation in order to incorporate memory effects related to a non-Debye relaxation and the roughness of the surface. The analysis is carried out by searching for solutions to the drift-diffusion equation that satisfy the Poisson equation relating the effective electric field to the net charge density. We also discuss the effect of the mobility of the ions, i.e., situations with equal and different diffusion coefficients for positive and negative ions, on the impedance and obtain an exact expression for the admittance. The model is compared with experimental results measured for the impedance of a nematic liquid crystal sample and a very good agreement is obtained.

The orchestration of cellular adhesion is an intricate process that involves a multitude of specialized proteins but at the same time follows a simple physical plan. It is still not totally known why cells create clusters of bonds to adhere on a substrate. Besides experimental methods to study cellular adhesion there exist several different theoretical models to describe the stability of focal adhesion clusters. The model proposed in this work makes it possible to understand the formation of adhesion bond clusters. It explains the emergence of a long-range bond-bond attraction that originates from the finite membrane elasticity as the driving force of cluster growth. In combination with a thermally driven bond disintegration such a model will eventually be able to explain the kinetic stability of finite size bond clusters. The model extends conventional two-state models where bonds are either open or closed by introducing a rich scenario of metastable states associated with hysteretic behavior in the bond closure and rupture dynamics.

A system composed of coupled FitzHugh-Nagumo neurons with various topological structures is investigated under the co-presence of two independently additive and multiplicative Gaussian white noises, in which particular attention is paid to the neuronal networks spiking regularity. As the additive noise intensity and the multiplicative noise intensity are simultaneously adjusted to optimal values, the temporal periodicity of the output of the system reaches the maximum, indicating the occurrence of doubly stochastic coherence. The network topology randomness exerts different influences on the temporal coherence of the spiking oscillation for dissimilar coupling strength regimes. At a small coupling strength, the spiking regularity shows nearly no difference in the regular, small-world, and completely random networks. At an intermediate coupling strength, the temporal periodicity in a small-world neuronal network can be improved slightly by adding a small fraction of long-range connections. At a large coupling strength, the dynamical behavior of the neurons completely loses the resonance property with regard to the additive noise intensity or the multiplicative noise intensity, and the spiking regularity decreases considerably with the increase of the network topology randomness. The network topology randomness plays more of a depressed role than a favorable role in improving the temporal coherence of the spiking oscillation in the neuronal network research study.

In this paper we introduce a simple mathematical analysis to reexamine vesicle dynamics in the quasispherical limit (small deformation) under a shear flow. In this context, a recent paper [Misbah, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 028104 (2006)] revealed a dynamic referred to as the vacillating-breathing (VB) mode where the vesicle main axis oscillates about the flow direction and the shape undergoes a breathinglike motion, as well as the tank-treading and tumbling (TB) regimes. Our goal here is to identify these three modes by obtaining explicit analytical expressions of the vesicle inclination angle and the shape deformation. In particular, the VB regime is put in evidence and the transition dynamics is discussed. Not surprisingly, our finding confirms the Keller-Skalak solutions (for rigid particles) and shows that the VB and TB modes coexist, and whether one prevails over the other depends on the initial conditions. An interesting additional element in the discussion is the prediction of the TB and VB modes as functions of a control parameter $\Gamma ,$ which can be identified as a TB-VB parameter.

We point out that the chemical space of a totally disconnected Cantor dust $K_n\subset E^n$ is a compact metric space $C^n$ with the spectral dimension $d_s=d_{\ell }=n>D$, where $D$ and $d_{\ell }=n$ are the fractal and chemical dimensions of $K_n$, respectively. Hence, we can define a random walk in the chemical space as a Markovian Gaussian process. The mapping of a random walk in $C^n$ into $K_n\subset E^n$ defines the quenched Lévy flight on the Cantor dust with a single step duration independent of the step length. The equations, describing the superdiffusion and diffusion-reaction front propagation ruled by the local quenched Lévy flight on $K_n\subset E^n$, are derived. The use of these equations to model superdiffusive phenomena, observed in some physical systems in which propagators decay faster than algebraically, is discussed.

We propose a simple model of coupled heat and particle transport based on zero-dimensional classical deterministic dynamics, which is reminiscent of a railway switch whose action is a function only of the particle's energy. It is shown that already in the minimal three-terminal model, where the second terminal is considered as a probe with zero net particle and heat currents, one can find extremely asymmetric Onsager matrices as a consequence of time-reversal symmetry breaking of the model. This minimalistic transport model provides a better understanding of thermoelectric heat engines in the presence of time-reversal symmetry breaking.

A microscopic characterization, based on the thermodynamic curvature $R$, is proposed for first-order liquid-gas phase transitions. Near the critical point, where $R$ is proportional to the correlation volume ${\xi }^3$, we propose that $R$ takes the same value in the coexisting phases. This proposal allows a determination of the liquid-gas coexistence curve with no use of the problematic Maxwell equal area construction. Furthermore, $\left|R\right|\sim {\xi }^3$ allows a direct determination of the Widom line in the supercritical regime. We illustrate with input from the van der Waals model and the National Institute of Standards and Technology Chemistry WebBook.