One way of determining the adhesive strength of liquids is provided by a probe-tack test, which measures the force or energy required to pull apart two parallel flat plates separated by a thin fluid film. The vast majority of the existing theoretical and experimental works in fluid adhesion use very viscous fluids, and consider a linear drive $L\left(t\right)\sim Vt$ with constant lifting plate velocity $V$. This implies a given energy cost and large lifting force magnitude. One challenging question in this field pertains to what would be the optimal time-dependent drive $L_{\mathrm{opt}}\left(t\right)$ for which the adhesion energy would be minimized. We use a variational scheme to systematically search for such $L_{\mathrm{opt}}\left(t\right)$. By employing an optimal lifting drive, in addition to saving energy, we verify a significant decrease in the adhesion force peak. The effectiveness of the proposed lifting procedure is checked for both Newtonian and power-law fluids.

An investigation of spectral line broadening in plasmas is carried out within a kinetic-theory approach, based on the Bogoliubov-Born-Green-Kirkwood-Yvon (BBGKY) hierarchy. The model employs a resummation procedure to account for correlated emitter-perturber collisions. Applications to hydrogen lines indicate that such collisions strongly affect the width and the shape in the core region. This argument is supported by comparisons to numerical simulations. It is also shown that the usual collision operator models, based on a binary description of emitter-perturber collisions, can be extremely inaccurate. The present model, in a better agreement with numerical simulations, is suggested as an extension suitable for the design of fast and accurate numerical routines for plasma diagnostics.

The energy cost of measurement is an important fundamental question, and may have profound implications for quantum technologies. In the context of Maxwell's demon, it is often stated that measurement has no minimum energy cost, while information has a work value. However, as we elucidate, the first of these statements does not refer to the cost paid by the measuring device. Here we show that it is only when a measuring device has access to a zero-temperature reservoir—that is, never—that measurement requires no energy. To obtain a given amount of information, all measuring devices must pay a cost equal to that which a heat engine would pay to obtain the equivalent work value of that information.

We study the quantum dynamics of a charged particle in a two-dimensional lattice, subject to constant and homogeneous electric and magnetic fields. We find that different regimes characterize these motions, depending on a combination of conditions, corresponding to weak and strong electric field intensities, rational or irrational directions of the electric field with respect to the lattice, and small or large values of the magnetic (Peierls) phase.

We study the melting of three-stranded DNA by using the real-space renormalization group and exact recursion relations. The prediction of an unusual Efimov-analog three-chain bound state, that appears at the critical melting of two-chain DNA, is corroborated by the zeros of the partition function. The distribution of the zeros has been studied in detail for various situations. We show that the Efimov DNA can occur even if the three-chain (i.e., three-monomer) interaction is repulsive in nature. In higher dimensions, a striking result that emerged in this repulsive zone is a continuous transition from the critical state to the Efimov DNA.

We study numerically the diffusion mechanism in silica liquid via molecular dynamics simulation. For this purpose we examine the evolution of structural units SiO${}_x$ ($x=4-6$) for different times and at temperatures from 3000 to 4500 K. Simulation shows that the diffusivity of the silicon particle is performed through the transition ${\mathrm{SiO}}_x\to {\mathrm{SiO}}_{x\pm 1}$, i.e., the bond-breaking and bond-reformation events. As a ${\mathrm{SiO}}_x\to {\mathrm{SiO}}_{x\pm 1}$ transition occurs, one oxygen particle moves out of or into the coordination shell, leading to a collective movement of Si particles. Other types of transitions, for instance, SiO${}_4$ → SiO${}_6$ or SiO${}_6$ → SiO${}_4$, are negligible. We establish an expression for the diffusion coefficient that shows that the diffusivity is not proportional to the rate of ${\mathrm{SiO}}_x\to {\mathrm{SiO}}_{x\pm 1}$ because it is strongly localized in the network structure. A high degree of localization of ${\mathrm{SiO}}_x\to {\mathrm{SiO}}_{x\pm 1}$ leads to a heterogeneous dynamics. We find that the dynamics slowdown is determined by two terms: The first one concerns the change in the statistic property related to the fraction of non-four-coordinated units (SiO${}_3$, SiO${}_5$, SiO${}_6$, and SiO${}_7$) and the second term concerns the correlation effect. Furthermore, we show that the correlation coefficient depends on both the fraction of the back-forth ${\mathrm{SiO}}_x\to {\mathrm{SiO}}_{x\pm 1}$ transition and the degree of localization of ${\mathrm{SiO}}_x\to {\mathrm{SiO}}_{x\pm 1}$. Our finding qualitatively supports the ideal that anomalously slow dynamics near the glass-transition point is caused by a strong localization of ${\mathrm{SiO}}_x\to {\mathrm{SiO}}_{x\pm 1}$.

One-dimensional models are used to study traveling-wave electrophoresis, a tunable method for separating charged analytes. A traveling-electrode model reveals the mechanism for longitudinal oscillations. A stationary-electrode model explains the origin of mode-locked plateaus in the average velocity, predicts devil's staircases with nested Farey sequences, and reduces to a continuum sinusoidal model in the high electrode-density limit.

We have investigated the progress of structural distortions in DNA molecules by single-shot coherent diffraction using extreme-ultraviolet radiation from a free-electron laser. A speckle pattern of DNA molecules was successfully acquired using photons in a single pulse with a 100 fs pulse width. The radiation damage was assessed by a cross correlation, revealing that the first exposure has significantly deformed most of the original structures. Molecules were not completely destroyed by the first single-shot exposure and underwent subsequent distortions through continued exposure, until eventually deforming into a radiation-hard structure.

Colloid particles that are partially wetted by two immiscible fluids can become confined to fluid-fluid interfaces. At sufficiently high volume fractions, the colloids may jam and the interface may crystallize. The fluids together with the interfacial colloids form an emulsion with interesting material properties and offer an important route to new soft materials. A promising approach to simulate these emulsions was presented in Aland et al. [Phys. Fluids 23, 062103 (2011)], where a Navier-Stokes-Cahn-Hilliard model for the macroscopic two-phase fluid system was combined with a surface phase-field-crystal model for the microscopic colloidal particles along the interface. Unfortunately this model leads to spurious velocities which require very fine spatial and temporal resolutions to accurately and stably simulate. In this paper we develop an improved Navier-Stokes-Cahn-Hilliard-surface phase-field-crystal model based on the principles of mass conservation and thermodynamic consistency. To validate our approach, we derive a sharp interface model and show agreement with the improved diffuse interface model. Using simple flow configurations, we show that the new model has much better properties and does not lead to spurious velocities. Finally, we demonstrate the solid-like behavior of the crystallized interface by simulating the fall of a solid ball through a colloid-laden multiphase fluid.

We study the problem of electron-ion temperature equilibration in plasmas. We consider pure H at various densities and temperatures and Ar-doped H at temperatures high enough so that the Ar is fully ionized. Two theoretical approaches are used: classical molecular dynamics (MD) with statistical two-body potentials and a generalized Lenard-Balescu (GLB) theory capable of treating multicomponent weakly coupled plasmas. The GLB is used in two modes: (1) with the quantum dielectric response in the random-phase approximation (RPA) together with the pure Coulomb interaction and (2) with the classical ($\hslash \to 0$) dielectric response (both with and without local-field corrections) together with the statistical potentials. We find that the MD results are described very well by classical GLB including the statistical potentials and without local-field corrections (RPA only); worse agreement is found when static local-field effects are included, in contradiction to the classical pure-Coulomb case with like charges. The results of the various approaches are all in excellent agreement with pure-Coulomb quantum GLB when the temperature is high enough. In addition, we show that classical calculations with statistical potentials derived from the exact quantum two-body density matrix produce results in far better agreement with pure-Coulomb quantum GLB than classical calculations performed with older existing statistical potentials.

In this paper, a hybrid electrodynamics and kinetics numerical model based on the finite-difference time-domain method and lattice Boltzmann method is presented for electromagnetic wave propagation in weakly ionized hydrogen plasmas. In this framework, the multicomponent Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook collision model considering both elastic and Coulomb collisions and the multicomponent force model based on the Guo model are introduced, which supply a hyperfine description on the interaction between electromagnetic wave and weakly ionized plasma. Cubic spline interpolation and mean filtering technique are separately introduced to solve the multiscalar problem and enhance the physical quantities, which are polluted by numerical noise. Several simulations have been implemented to validate our model. The numerical results are consistent with a simplified analytical model, which demonstrates that this model can obtain satisfying numerical solutions successfully.

This Rapid Communication proposes a comprehensive scaling theory for percolation, which clarifies the intrinsic nature of finite-size scaling and effectively addresses the finite-size effects. This theory applies to extensive systems, including especially the explosive percolation. It is suggested that explosive percolation shares the same scaling law as normal percolation, but may suffer from more severe finite-size effects. Remarkably, in contrast to previous studies, relying on the framework of our theory, the present Rapid Communication suggests that for all systems, the universal scaling functions do not depend on the boundary conditions.

We study overdamped stochastic model describing adsorption or desorption processes with nonequilibrium chemical reactions on the surface. It is shown that internal noise satisfying the fluctuation-dissipation relation at small intensities governs transitions between ordered thermodynamical dense and diluted phases. These phase transitions are characterized by an increase of fluctuations of the coverage filed and correlation radius of spatial modulation. At large noise intensity a transition towards disordered phase with chaotic spatial configuration is realized. We have shown that organized stationary patterns are of nanometer range. We define that both period of stationary structures and corresponding correlation radius depend on the noise intensity.

We derive the explicit analytic expression for efficiency at maximum power in a simple model of classical particle transport.

We study a set of cooperatively interacting units at criticality, and we prove with analytical and numerical arguments that they generate the same renewal non-Poisson intermittency as that produced by blinking quantum dots, thereby giving a stronger support to the results of earlier investigation. By analyzing how this out-of-equilibrium system responds to harmonic perturbations, we find that the response can be described only using a new form of linear response theory that accounts for aging and the nonergodic behavior of the underlying process. We connect the undamped response of the system at criticality to the decaying response predicted by the recently established nonergodic fluctuation-dissipation theorem for dichotomous processes using information about the second moment of the fluctuations. We demonstrate that over a wide range of perturbation frequencies the response of the cooperative system is greatest when at criticality.

The modeling of ring polymers remains a challenge in classical density functional theory (DFT) due to the difficulty in solving the direct bond connectivity of the ring architecture without free ends. By considering the feature that all of the segments in a ring are equivalent, we give an algorithm to solve the integral of direct bond connectivity for ideal ring polymers, and therefore propose a DFT for inhomogeneous ring polymers, where the excess free energy functional is extended from an equation of state (EOS). This EOS exhibits better agreement than other EOSs for the compressibility factors, compared to Monte Carlo data. Importantly, the DFT satisfactorily reproduces the data of the configurational-bias Monte Carlo (CBMC) simulations for ring polymers. The local density profiles from the DFT show that the bead density of inhomogeneous ring fluids is independent of ring size, which is also confirmed by the CBMC simulations. Interestingly, the behavior of solvation force for ring polymers is quite similar to that of the polymers with infinite chain length.

We measure the ensemble averaged deformation of an enzyme for an oscillating applied force. From the low frequency divergence of the mechanical susceptibility for the hinge motion of guanylate kinase we obtain a nonequilibrium phase diagram in the frequency-force plane. A phase line separates linear elasticity dynamics from softer (viscoelastic) dynamics. The hinge motion corresponds to crossing this phase line (not to a soft linear elastic mode). The phase line is dramatically shifted in the closed state compared to the open state of the enzyme.

We report on several improvements of the classical time-delayed feedback control method for stabilization of unstable periodic orbits or steady states. In an electronic circuit experiment, we were able to realize time-varying and distributed delays in the control force leading to successful control for large parameter sets, including large time delays. The presented techniques make advanced use of the natural torsion of the orbits, which is also necessary for the original control method to work.

We consider nonlinear Dirac equations (NLDE's) in the 1+1 dimension with scalar-scalar self-interaction $\frac{g^2}{\kappa +1}{\left(\overline{\Psi }\Psi \right)}^{\kappa +1}$ in the presence of various external electromagnetic fields. We find exact solutions for special external fields and we study the behavior of solitary-wave solutions to the NLDE in the presence of a wide variety of fields in a variational approximation depending on collective coordinates which allows the position, width, and phase of these waves to vary in time. We find that in this approximation the position $q\left(t\right)$ of the center of the solitary wave obeys the usual behavior of a relativistic point particle in an external field. For time-independent external fields, we find that the energy of the solitary wave is conserved but not the momentum, which becomes a function of time. We postulate that, similarly to the nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE), a sufficient dynamical condition for instability to arise is that $dP\left(t\right)/d\dot{q}\left(t\right)<0$. Here $P\left(t\right)$ is the momentum of the solitary wave, and $\dot{q}$ is the velocity of the center of the wave in the collective coordinate approximation. We found for our choices of external potentials that we always have $dP\left(t\right)/d\dot{q}\left(t\right)>0$, so, when instabilities do occur, they are due to a different source. We investigate the accuracy of our variational approximation using numerical simulations of the NLDE and find that, when the forcing term is small and we are in a regime where the solitary wave is stable, that the behavior of the solutions of the collective coordinate equations agrees very well with the numerical simulations. We found that the time evolution of the collective coordinates of the solitary wave in our numerical simulations, namely the position of the average charge density and the momentum of the solitary wave, provide good indicators for when the solitary wave first becomes unstable. When these variables stop being smooth functions of time ($t$), then the solitary wave starts to distort in shape.