The surface phase behavior of binary mixtures of colloidal hard rods in contact with a solid substrate (hard wall) is studied, with special emphasis on the region of the phase diagram that includes the smectic A phase. The colloidal rods are modeled as hard cylinders of the same diameter and different lengths, in the approximation of perfect alignment. A fundamental-measure density functional is used to obtain equilibrium density profiles and thermodynamic properties such as surface tensions and adsorption coefficients. The bulk phase diagram exhibits nematic-smectic and smectic-smectic demixing, with smectic phases having different compositions; in some cases they are microfractionated. The calculated surface phase diagram of the wall-nematic interface shows a very rich phase behavior, including layering transitions and complete wetting at high pressures, whereby an infinitely thick smectic film grows at the wall via an infinite sequence of stepwise first-order layering transitions. For lower pressures complete wetting also obtains, but here the smectic film grows in a continuous fashion. Finally, at very low pressures, the wall-nematic interface exhibits critical adsorption by the smectic phase, due to the second-order character of the bulk nematic-smectic transition.

We present a combined mean-field and simulation approach to different models describing the dynamics of classes formed by elements that can appear, disappear, or copy themselves. These models, related to a paradigm duplication-innovation model known as Chinese restaurant process, are devised to reproduce the scaling behavior observed in the genome-wide repertoire of protein domains of all known species. In view of these data, we discuss the qualitative and quantitative differences of the alternative model formulations, focusing in particular on the roles of element loss and of the specificity of empirical domain classes.

It is getting increasingly evident that physical properties such as elastoviscoplastic properties of living materials are quite important for the process of tissue development, including regulation of genetic pathways. Measuring such properties in vivo is a complicated and challenging task. In this paper, we present an instrument, a scanning air puff tonometer, which is able to map point by point the viscoelastic properties of flat or gently curved soft materials. This instrument is an improved version of the air puff tonometer used by optometrists, with important modifications. The instrument allows one to obtain a direct insight into gradients of material properties in vivo. The instrument capabilities are demonstrated on substances with known elastoviscoplastic properties and several biological objects. On the basis of the results obtained, the role of the gradients of elastoviscoplastic properties is outlined for the process of angiogenesis, limb development, bacterial colonies expansion, etc. which is important for bridging the gaps in the theory of the tissue development and highlighting new possibilities for tissue engineering, based on a clarification of the role of physical features in developing biological material.

Fundamental design principles are presented for vehicle systems governed by autonomous cruise control devices. By analyzing the corresponding delay differential equations, it is shown that for any car-following model short-wavelength oscillations can appear due to robotic reaction times, and that there are tradeoffs between the time delay and the control gains. The analytical findings are demonstrated on an optimal velocity model using numerical continuation and numerical simulation.

The shear failure or stiction of an adhesive contact between a poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) rubber and a glass lens has been investigated using a torsional contact configuration. As compared to linear sliding, torsion presents the advantage of inducing a shear failure under a pure mode III condition, while preserving the cylindrical symmetry of the contact. The surface of the transparent PDMS substrate was marked using a network of dots in order to monitor continuously the in-plane surface displacements during the stiction process. Using a previously developed inversion procedure (A. Chateauminois and C. Fretigny, Eur. Phys. J. E 27, 221 (2008)), the corresponding surface shear stress distributions were obtained from the displacement fields. Stiction was found to involve the progressive shrinkage of a central adhesive zone surrounded by an annular microslip region. Adhesion effects were especially evidenced from a stress overshoot at the boundary of the adhesive zone. The experimental data were analysis using an extension to torsional contact of the Maugis-Dugdale approach’s to adhesive contacts which takes into account frictional effects. This model allowed to extract an effective adhesion energy in the presence of friction, which dependence on kinetics effect is briefly discussed.

We investigate the influence of Dirichlet boundary conditions on various types of localized solutions of the cubic-quintic complex Ginzburg-Landau equation as it arises as an envelope equation near the weakly inverted onset of traveling waves. We find that various types of nonmoving pulses and holes can accommodate Dirichlet boundary conditions by having, for holes, two halves of a $\pi$ hole at each end of the box. Moving pulses of fixed shape as they arise for periodic boundary conditions are replaced by a nonmoving asymmetric pulse, which has half a $\pi$ hole at the end of the box in the original moving direction to guarantee that Dirichlet boundary conditions are met. Moving breathing pulses as they arise for periodic boundary conditions propagate toward one end of the container and stop moving while the breathing persists indefinitely. Finally breathing and moving holes are replaced by two (nonbreathing) half $\pi$ holes at each end of the container and one hump in the bulk.

We investigate theoretically the collective dynamics of soft active particles living in a viscous fluid. We focus on a minimal model for active but nonmotile particles consisting of $N>1$ elastic dimers deformed by active stresses and interacting hydrodynamically. We first derive a set of effective equations of motion for the positions of the particles. We then exploit these equations in two experimentally relevant cases: uncorrelated random internal stresses, and uniform monochromatic external shaking. In both cases, we show that small groups of intrinsically nonmotile particles can display nontrivial modes of locomotion resulting from the hydrodynamic correlations between the particle-conformation fluctuations. In addition, we demonstrate that a coherent shaking yields spatial ordering in suspension of soft particles interacting solely through the fluid.

This Rapid Communication addresses the relationship between hyperbolic equations of heat conduction and microscopic models of dielectrics. Effects of the nonstationary heat conduction are investigated in two one-dimensional models with conserved momentum: Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) chain and chain of rotators (CR). These models belong to different universality classes with respect to stationary heat conduction. Direct numeric simulations reveal in both models a crossover from oscillatory decay of short-wave perturbations of the temperature field to smooth diffusive decay of the long-wave perturbations. Such behavior is inconsistent with parabolic Fourier equation of the heat conduction. The crossover wavelength decreases with increase in average temperature in both models. For the FPU model the lowest-order hyperbolic Cattaneo-Vernotte equation for the nonstationary heat conduction is not applicable, since no unique relaxation time can be determined.

We study nonequilibrium fluctuation theorems for classical systems in the presence of a time-reversal symmetry-breaking field and nonconservative forces in a stochastic as well as a deterministic setup. We consider a system and a heat bath, called the combined system, and show that the fluctuation theorems are valid even when the heat bath goes out of equilibrium during driving. The only requirement for the validity is that, when the driving is switched off, the combined system relaxes to a state having a uniform probability measure on a constant energy surface, consistent with microcanonical ensemble of an isolated system.

Correlation effects in the fluctuation of the number of particles in the process of energy branching by sequential impact ionizations are studied using an exactly soluble model of random parking on a line. The Fano factor $F$ calculated in an uncorrelated final-state “shot-glass” model does not give an accurate answer even with the exact gap-distribution statistics. Allowing for the nearest-neighbor correlation effects gives a correction to $F$ that brings $F$ very close to its exact value. We discuss the implications of our results for energy resolution of semiconductor gamma detectors, where the value of $F$ is of the essence. We argue that $F$ is controlled by correlations in the cascade energy branching process and hence the widely used final-state model estimates are not reliable—especially in the practically relevant cases when the energy branching is terminated by competition between impact ionization and phonon emission.

Computer simulations are presented of the isotropic-to-nematic transition in a liquid crystal confined between two parallel plates a distance $H$ apart. The plates are neutral and do not impose any anchoring on the particles. Depending on the shape of the pair potential acting between the particles, we find that the transition either changes from first order to continuous at a critical film thickness $H=H_{\text{x}}$, or that the transition remains first order irrespective of $H$. This demonstrates that the isotropic-to-nematic transition in confined geometry is not characterized by any universality class, but rather that its fate is determined by microscopic details. The resulting capillary phase diagrams can thus assume two topologies: one where the isotropic and nematic branches of the binodal meet at $H=H_{\text{x}}$, and one where they remain separated. For values of $H$ where the transition is strongly first order the shift $\Delta ϵ$ of the transition temperature is in excellent agreement with the Kelvin equation. Not only is the relation $\Delta ϵ\propto 1/H$ recovered but also the prefactor of the shift is in quantitative agreement with the independently measured bulk latent heat and interfacial tension.

We explore the effect of random permanent cross-links on a system of directed polymers confined between two planes with their end points free to slide on them. We treat the cross-links as quenched disorder and we use a semimicroscopic replica field theory to study the structure and elasticity of this system. Upon increasing the cross-link density, we get a continuous gelation transition signaled by the emergence of a finite in-plane localization length. The distribution of localization length turns out to depend on the height along the preferred direction of the directed polymers. The gelation transition also gives rise to a finite in-plane shear modulus which we calculate and turns out to be universal, i.e., independent of the energy and length scales of the polymers and the cross-links. Using a symmetry argument, we show that cross-links of negligible extent along the preferred axis of the directed polymers do not cause any renormalization to the tilt modulus of the uncross-linked system.

We have computed the hydrodynamic radius $R_h$ and intrinsic viscosity $\left[\eta \right]$ of a large number of random coil polymer models by path integration. We examine the effects of chain length, solvent quality, monomer size and shape, and chain stiffness on the approach of these transport properties to the limit of large molecular mass. For many of the models, we have also calculated the ensemble-averaged solvent velocity field in the vicinity of the coil as it moves with constant drift velocity under the action of an external force. Naive scaling arguments predict $\alpha =\nu$ and $\beta =3\nu -1$, where $\alpha$, $\beta$, and $\nu$ are the exponents controlling the chain length behavior of $R_h$, $\left[\eta \right]$, and $R_g$, respectively. We present evidence for a “draining crossover” that quantifies the slow convergence of the transport properties to their asymptotic scaling behavior. Indeed, the convergence is so slow that effective $\alpha$ and $\beta$ exponents rarely agree with the naive predictions at typical molecular masses. For the same chain models, $R_g$ converges rapidly to its asymptotic behavior, indicating that the effect is not due to a crossover from theta to swollen behavior, as often stated. Solvent quality, monomer size, and chain stiffness all influence the draining crossover. Our results call into question the common practice of extracting metrical data, e.g., characteristic ratios, directly from polymer solution transport properties.

When a neuron fires and the resulting action potential travels down its axon toward other neurons’ dendrites, the effect on each of those neurons is mediated by the strength of the synapse that separates it from the firing neuron. This strength, in turn, is affected by the postsynaptic neuron’s response through a mechanism that is thought to underlie important processes such as learning and memory. Although of difficult quantification, cortical synaptic strengths have been found to obey a long-tailed unimodal distribution peaking near the lowest values (approximately lognormal), thus confirming some of the predictive models built previously. Most of these models are causally local, in the sense that they refer to the situation in which a number of neurons all fire directly at the same postsynaptic neuron. Consequently, they necessarily embody assumptions regarding the generation of action potentials by the presynaptic neurons that have little biological interpretability. We introduce a network model of large groups of interconnected neurons and demonstrate, making none of the assumptions that characterize the causally local models, that its long-term behavior gives rise to a distribution of synaptic weights (the mathematical surrogates of synaptic strengths) with the same properties that were experimentally observed. In our model, the action potentials that create a neuron’s input are, ultimately, the product of network-wide causal chains relating what happens at a neuron to the firings of others. Our model is then of a causally global nature and predicates the emergence of the synaptic-weight distribution on network structure and function. As such, it has the potential to become instrumental also in the study of other emergent cortical phenomena.

As the behavior of a system composed of cyclically competing species is strongly influenced by the presence of fluctuations, it is of interest to study cyclic dominance in low dimensions where these effects are the most prominent. We here discuss rock-paper-scissors games on a one-dimensional lattice where the interaction rates and the mobility can be species dependent. Allowing only single site occupation, we realize mobility by exchanging individuals of different species. When the interaction and swapping rates are symmetric, a strongly enhanced swapping rate yields an increased mixing of the species, leading to a mean-field-like coexistence even in one-dimensional systems. This coexistence is transient when the rates are asymmetric, and eventually only one species will survive. Interestingly, in our spatial games the dominating species can differ from the species that would dominate in the corresponding nonspatial model. We identify different regimes in the parameter space and construct the corresponding dynamical phase diagram.

We describe a technique for calculating the low-frequency mechanical modes and frequencies of a large symmetric biological molecule where the eigenvectors of the Hessian matrix are determined with full atomic detail. The method, which follows order $N$ methods used in electronic structure theory, determines the subset of lowest-frequency modes while using group theory to reduce the complexity of the problem. We apply the method to three icosahedral viruses of various $T$ numbers and sizes; the human viruses polio and hepatitis B, and the cowpea chlorotic mottle virus, a plant virus. From the normal-mode eigenvectors, we use a bond polarizability model to predict a low-frequency Raman scattering profile for the viruses. The full atomic detail in the displacement patterns combined with an empirical potential-energy model allows a comparison of the fully atomic normal modes with elastic network models and normal-mode analysis with only dihedral degrees of freedom. We find that coarse-graining normal-mode analysis (particularly the elastic network model) can predict the displacement patterns for the first few $\left(\sim 10\right)$ low-frequency modes that are global and cooperative.

We study the relationship between the local grain-grain friction and the force texture in a granular pile to its macroscopic emergent frictional values. We account for the force geometrical properties by a model that assumes the existence of slide planes that define macroscopic friction angles. The model depends on the measured angular distribution of contact forces and a single parameter, to be fitted, that is a function of the roughness of the slide plane. The model is tested by a state-of-the-art model of a two-dimensional granular pile built by depositing grains under gravity and submitted to an external uniaxial stress.

Recent studies have brought into question the view that at sufficiently high Reynolds number turbulence is an asymptotic state. We present direct observation of the decay of turbulent states in Taylor-Couette flow with lifetimes spanning five orders of magnitude. We also show that there is a regime where Taylor-Couette flow shares many of the decay characteristics observed in other shear flows, including Poisson statistics and the coexistence of laminar and turbulent patches. Our data suggest that for a range of Reynolds numbers characteristic decay times increase superexponentially with increasing Reynolds number but remain bounded in agreement with the most recent data from pipe flow. Our data are also consistent with recent theoretical predictions of lifetime scaling in transitional flows.

Weyl’s law approximates the number of states in a quantum system by partitioning the energetically accessible phase-space volume into Planck cells. Here, we show that resonances in open quantum systems can follow a modified fractal Weyl law, even when their classical dynamics is not globally chaotic but also contains domains of regular motion. Using an appropriate phase-space representation for open quantum systems, we connect this behavior to emerging quantum-to-classical correspondence.

A general method is presented for modeling spatially extended systems that may contain a localized source of nonlinearity. It has direct applications to structural health monitoring (SHM) where physical damage may cause such nonlinearity and also communications channels which may exhibit localized nonlinearity due to bad electrical contacts or component nonlinearity. The method uses a multistage nonlinear transform in order to model the system dynamics. We discuss the application to SHM and provide a preliminary test of the method with experimental data from a randomly shaken beam with loose bolts. We discuss the application to telecommunications, provide an experimental observation of symmetric nonlinearity in a “bad” electrical contact, and provide a preliminary test of using this method to remove nonlinear echo (and thereby improve data rate) on a telephone line used for data transmission.