In the presence of external multiplicative noise, ac-driven electroconvection (EC) in a nematic liquid crystal is investigated. Noise-induced traveling waves (TWs) including localized ones (worms) are found with a typical, stationary wave. Three kinds of TWs are classified by their dynamic features (e.g., noise-intensity-dependent Hopf frequency and space-time map). Moreover, ac frequency-dependent threshold voltages of EC are examined in high noise intensities causing abnormal charge redistribution of the EC cell, and the roles of ac and noise fields with respect to TWs are elucidated in successive pattern evolutions. The mechanism of TWs is discussed in terms of a locally perturbed dynamic conductivity due to the noise field additionally applied to the EC; such a conductivity can be related to a weak-electrolyte model for a Hopf bifurcation to a TW.

To demonstrate coupling between orientation and flow fluctuations in a nematic liquid crystal at equilibrium, we simultaneously observe the intensity change due to director fluctuations under a polarizing microscope and the Brownian motion of a fluorescent particle trapped weakly by optical tweezers. The calculated cross-correlation function of the particle position and the spatial gradient of the intensity is nonzero, clearly indicating the existence of coupling.

Using density-functional theory–based molecular-dynamics simulations, we have investigated the equation of state for silicon in a wide range of plasma density and temperature conditions of $\rho =0.001–500\mathrm{g}/\mathrm{c}{\mathrm{m}}^3$ and $T=2000–{10}^8\mathrm{K}$. With these calculations, we have established a first-principles equation-of-state (FPEOS) table of silicon for high-energy-density (HED) plasma simulations. When compared with the widely used SESAME-EOS model (Table 3810), we find that the FPEOS-predicted Hugoniot is ∼20% softer; for off-Hugoniot plasma conditions, the pressure and internal energy in FPEOS are lower than those of SESAME EOS for temperatures above $T$ ≈ 1–10 eV (depending on density), while the former becomes higher in the low-$T$ regime. The pressure difference between FPEOS and SESAME 3810 can reach to ∼50%, especially in the warm-dense-matter regime. Implementing the FPEOS table of silicon into our hydrocodes, we have studied its effects on Si-target implosions. When compared with the one-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamics simulation using the SESAME 3810 EOS model, the FPEOS simulation showed that (1) the shock speed in silicon is ∼10% slower; (2) the peak density of an in-flight Si shell during implosion is ∼20% higher than the SESAME 3810 simulation; (3) the maximum density reached in the FPEOS simulation is ∼40% higher at the peak compression; and (4) the final areal density and neutron yield are, respectively, ∼30% and ∼70% higher predicted by FPEOS versus the traditional simulation using SESAME 3810. All of these features can be attributed to the larger compressibility of silicon predicted by FPEOS. These results indicate that an accurate EOS table, like the FPEOS presented here, could be essential for the precise design of targets for HED experiments.

We analyze a linear lattice Boltzmann (LB) formulation for simulation of linear acoustic wave propagation in heterogeneous media. We employ the single-relaxation-time Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook as well as the general multirelaxation-time collision operators. By calculating the dispersion relation for various 2D lattices, we show that the D2Q5 lattice is the most suitable model for the linear acoustic problem. We also implement a grid-refinement algorithm for the LB scheme to simulate waves propagating in a heterogeneous medium with velocity contrasts. Our results show that the LB scheme performance is comparable to the classical second-order finite-difference schemes. Given its efficiency for parallel computation, the LB method can be a cost effective tool for the simulation of linear acoustic waves in complex geometries and multiphase media.

Traditional studies of memristive devices have mainly focused on their applications in nonvolatile information storage and information processing. Here, we demonstrate that the third fundamental component of information technologies—the transfer of information—can also be employed with memristive devices. For this purpose, we introduce a metastable memristive circuit. Combining metastable memristive circuits into a line, one obtains an architecture capable of transferring a signal edge from one space location to another. We emphasize that the suggested metastable memristive lines employ only resistive circuit components. Moreover, their networks (for example, Y-connected lines) have an information processing capability.

For years, the comprehension of the tumor growth process has been intriguing scientists. New research has been constantly required to better understand the complexity of this phenomenon. In this paper, we propose a mathematical model that describes the properties, already known empirically, of avascular tumor growth. We present, from an individual-level (microscopic) framework, an explanation of some phenomenological (macroscopic) aspects of tumors, such as their spatial form and the way they develop. Our approach is based on competitive interaction between the cells. This simple rule makes the model able to reproduce evidence observed in real tumors, such as exponential growth in their early stage followed by power-law growth. The model also reproduces (i) the fractal-space distribution of tumor cells and (ii) the universal growth behavior observed in both animals and tumors. Our analyses suggest that the universal similarity between tumor and animal growth comes from the fact that both can be described by the same dynamic equation—the Bertalanffy-Richards model—even if they do not necessarily share the same biological properties.

Magic sand, a hydrophobic toy granular material, is widely used in popular science instructions because of its nonintuitive mechanical properties. A detailed study of the failure of an underwater column of magic sand shows that these properties can be traced to a single phenomenon: the system self-generates a cohesive skin that encapsulates the material inside. The skin, consisting of pinned air-water-grain interfaces, shows multiscale mechanical properties: they range from contact-line dynamics in the intragrain roughness scale, to plastic flow at the grain scale, all the way to sample-scale mechanical responses. With decreasing rigidity of the skin, the failure mode transforms from brittle to ductile (both of which are collective in nature) to a complete disintegration at the single-grain scale.

The present paper studies the generation mechanism of terahertz (THz) radiation from tightly focused femtosecond laser pulses in a gas medium. We measured the angular radiation pattern under different focusing conditions and observed that, with the deepening of focus, the angular radiation pattern changes and optical-to-THz conversion efficiency increases. The analysis of the observed phenomena led to the assumption that the dipole radiation prevails in most cases despite the existing conception regarding the dominating role of the quadrupole mechanism of radiation. Based on these assumptions, the transient photocurrent theory of the phenomenon presented in this paper was developed by us and used for the numerical fit of the experimental data.

We numerically investigate the heat transport problem in a one-dimensional momentum-conserving lattice with a soft-type (ST) anharmonic interparticle interaction. It is found that with the increase of the system's temperature, while the introduction of ST anharmonicity softens phonons and decreases their velocities, this type of nonlinearity like its hard type (HT) counterpart, can still not be able to fully damp the longest wavelength phonons. Therefore, a usual anomalous temperature dependence of heat transport with certain scaling properties similarly to those shown in the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-$\beta$-like systems with HT interactions can be seen. Our detailed examination from simulations verifies this temperature-dependent behavior well.

We present a numerical study of the critical behavior of the nonequilibrium zero-temperature random field Ising model in two dimensions on a triangular lattice. Our findings, based on the scaling analysis and collapse of data collected in extensive simulations of systems with linear sizes up to $L=65536$, show that the model is in a different universality class than the same model on a quadratic lattice, which is relevant for a better understanding of model universality and the analysis of experimental data.

The Kramers problem for a dimer in a bistable piecewise linear potential is studied in the presence of correlated noise processes. The effect of such a correlation is to redistribute the thermal power between the dynamical degrees of freedom, and this leads to significant deviations in the dynamics of the system from the case of independent noise processes. The distribution of first passage times from one minima to the basin of attraction of the other minima is found to have exponentially decaying tails with the parameter dependent on the amount of correlation and the coupling between the particles. The strong coupling limit of the problem is analyzed using adiabatic elimination, where it is found that the initial probability density relaxes towards a stationary value on the same time scale as the mean escape time when the noise intensity of the system is low. For higher noise fluctuations, the relaxation towards the stationary state is slower in comparison to escape times. In the extreme limit of perfect anticorrelation, the random dynamical system behaves as a deterministic system in a steady state in which the center of mass starting from the unstable maxima moves down the hill and gets trapped in the potential minima. The implications for polymer dynamics in a potential are discussed.

In this article, we investigate explosive bond percolation (EBP) with the product rule, formally known as the Achlioptas process, on a scale-free multifractal weighted planar stochastic lattice. One of the key features of the EBP transition is the delay, compared to the corresponding random bond percolation (RBP), in the onset of the spanning cluster. However, when it happens, it happens so dramatically that initially it was believed, although ultimately proved wrong, that explosive percolation (EP) exhibits a first-order transition. In the case of EP, much effort has been devoted to resolving the issue of its order of transition and almost no effort has been devoted to finding the critical point, critical exponents, etc., to classify it into universality classes. This is in sharp contrast to the situation for classical random percolation. We do not even know all the exponents of EP for a regular planar lattice or for an Erdös-Renyi network. We first find the critical point $p_c$ numerically and then obtain all the critical exponents, $\beta$, $\gamma$, and $\nu$, as well as the Fisher exponent $\tau$ and the fractal dimension $d_f$ of the spanning cluster. We also compare our results for EBP with those for RBP and find that all the exponents of EBP obey the same scaling relations as do those for RBP. Our findings suggest that EBP is not special except for the fact that the exponent $\beta$ is unusually small compared to that for RBP.

We generalize a model of growth over a disordered environment, to a large class of Itō processes. In particular, we study how the microscopic properties of the noise influence the macroscopic growth rate. The present model can account for growth processes in large dimensions and provides a bed to understand better the tradeoff between exploration and exploitation. An additional mapping to the Schrödinger equation readily provides a set of disorders for which this model can be solved exactly. This mean-field approach exhibits interesting features, such as a freezing transition and an optimal point of growth, which can be studied in detail, and gives yet another explanation for the occurrence of the Zipf law in complex, well-connected systems.

The onset of thermalization in a closed system of randomly interacting bosons at the level of a single eigenstate is discussed. We focus on the emergence of Bose-Einstein distribution of single-particle occupation numbers, and we give a local criterion for thermalization dependent on the eigenstate energy. We show how to define the temperature of an eigenstate, provided that it has a chaotic structure in the basis defined by the single-particle states. The analytical expression for the eigenstate temperature as a function of both interparticle interaction and energy is complemented by numerical data.

The generation of rogue waves is investigated in a class of nonlocal nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equations. In this system, modulation instability is suppressed as the effect of nonlocality increases. Despite this fact, there is a parameter regime where the number and amplitude of the rogue events increase as compared to the standard NLS equation, which is a limit of the system when nonlocality vanishes. Furthermore, the nature of these waves is investigated; while no analytical solutions are known to model these events, it is shown, numerically, that these rogue events differ significantly from the rational soliton (Peregrine) solution of the limiting NLS equation. The universal structure of the associated rogue waves is discussed and a local description is presented. These results can help in the experimental realization of rogue waves in these media.

We study the correspondence between modulational instability and types of fundamental nonlinear excitation in a nonlinear fiber with both third-order and fourth-order effects. Some soliton excitations are obtained in the modulational instability regime which have not been found in nonlinear fibers with second-order effects and third-order effects. Explicit analysis suggests that the existence of solitons is related to the modulation stability circle in the modulation instability regime, and they just exist in the modulational instability regime outside of the modulational stability circle. It should be emphasized that the solitons exist only with two special profiles on a continuous-wave background at a certain frequency. The evolution stability of the solitons is tested numerically by adding some noise to initial states, which indicates that they are robust against perturbations even in the modulation instability regime. Further analysis indicates that solitons in the modulational instability regime are caused by fourth-order effects.

Robust synchronization is indispensable for stable operation of a power grid. Recently, it has been reported that a large number of decentralized generators, rather than a small number of large power plants, provide enhanced synchronization together with greater robustness against structural failures. In this paper, we systematically control the spatial uniformity of the geographical distribution of generators and conclude that the more uniformly generators are distributed, the more enhanced synchronization occurs. In the presence of temporal failures of power sources, we observe that spatial uniformity helps the power grid to recover stationarity in a shorter time. We also discuss practical implications of our results in designing the structure of a power-grid network.

We discuss a theoretical framework to define an optimal subgrid closure for shell models of turbulence. The closure is based on the ansatz that consecutive shell multipliers are short-range correlated, following the third hypothesis of Kolmogorov formulated for similar quantities for the original three-dimensional Navier-Stokes turbulence. We also propose a series of systematic approximations to the optimal model by assuming different degrees of correlations across scales among amplitudes and phases of consecutive multipliers. We show numerically that such low-order closures work well, reproducing all known properties of the large-scale dynamics including anomalous scaling. We found small but systematic discrepancies only for a range of scales close to the subgrid threshold, which do not tend to disappear by increasing the order of the approximation. We speculate that the lack of convergence might be due to a structural instability, at least for the evolution of very fast degrees of freedom at small scales. Connections with similar problems for large eddy simulations of the three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations are also discussed.

We investigate the effect of the node degree and energy $E$ on the electronic wave function for regular and irregular structures, namely, regular lattices, disordered percolation clusters, and complex networks. We evaluate the dependency of the quantum probability for each site on its degree. For a class of biregular structures formed by two disjoint subsets of sites sharing the same degree, the probability $P_k\left(E\right)$ of finding the electron on any site with $k$ neighbors is independent of $E\ne 0$, a consequence of an exact analytical result that we prove for any bipartite lattice. For more general nonbipartite structures, $P_k\left(E\right)$ may depend on $E$ as illustrated by an exact evaluation of a one-dimensional semiregular lattice: $P_k\left(E\right)$ is large for small values of $E$ when $k$ is also small, and its maximum values shift towards large values of $\left|E\right|$ with increasing $k$. Numerical evaluations of $P_k\left(E\right)$ for two different types of percolation clusters and the Apollonian network suggest that this observed feature might be generally valid.

The intuition of causation is so fundamental that almost every research study in life sciences refers to this concept. However, a widely accepted formal definition of causal influence between observables is still missing. In the framework of linear Langevin networks without feedback (linear response models) we propose a measure of causal influence based on a new decomposition of information flows over time. We discuss its main properties and we compare it with other information measures like the transfer entropy. We are currently unable to extend the definition of causal influence to systems with a general feedback structure and nonlinearities.