Thin shells are found in nature at scales ranging from viruses to hens’ eggs; the stiffness of such shells is essential for their function. We present the results of numerical simulations and theoretical analyses for the indentation of ellipsoidal and cylindrical elastic shells, considering both pressurized and unpressurized shells. We provide a theoretical foundation for the experimental findings of Lazarus et al. [following paper, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 144301 (2012)] and for previous work inferring the turgor pressure of bacteria from measurements of their indentation stiffness; we also identify a new regime at large indentation. We show that the indentation stiffness of convex shells is dominated by either the mean or Gaussian curvature of the shell depending on the pressurization and indentation depth. Our results reveal how geometry rules the rigidity of shells.

We present a numerical study of two-particle dispersion from point sources in three-dimensional incompressible homogeneous and isotropic turbulence at Reynolds number $\mathrm{Re}\simeq 300$. Tracer particles are emitted in bunches from localized sources smaller than the Kolmogorov scale. We report the first quantitative evidence, supported by an unprecedented statistics, of the deviations of relative dispersion from Richardson’s picture. Deviations are due to extreme events of pairs separating much faster than average, and of pairs remaining close for long time. The two classes of events are the fingerprints of complete different physics, the former dominated by inertial subrange and large-scale fluctuations, and the latter by dissipation subrange. A comparison of the relative separation in surrogate white-in-time velocity field, with correct viscous-, inertial-, and integral-scale properties, allows us to assess the importance of temporal correlations along tracer trajectories.

Conventional viscous fingering flow in radial Hele-Shaw cells employs a constant injection rate, resulting in the emergence of branched interfacial shapes. The search for mechanisms to prevent the development of these bifurcated morphologies is relevant to a number of areas in science and technology. A challenging problem is how best to choose the pumping rate in order to restrain the growth of interfacial amplitudes. We use an analytical variational scheme to look for the precise functional form of such an optimal flow rate. We find it increases linearly with time in a specific manner so that interface disturbances are minimized. Experiments and nonlinear numerical simulations support the effectiveness of this particularly simple, but nontrivial, pattern controlling process.

Nonlinear frequency conversion is a well known and widely exploited family of effects in optics, often arising from a Kerr nonlinearity in a crystal medium. Here, we report high stability frequency conversion in the microwave regime due to a ${\chi }^{(3)}$ nonlinearity in sapphire introduced by a dilute concentration of paramagnetic spins. First, we produce a high stability comb from two microwave fields at 12.029 and 12.037 GHz corresponding to two high $Q$-factor whispering gallery (WG) modes within the electron spin resonance bandwidth of the ${\mathrm{Fe}}^{3+}$ ion. The resulting comb is generated by a cascaded four-wave mixing effect with a 7.7 MHz repetition rate. Then, by suppressing four-wave mixing by increasing the threshold power, third harmonic generation is achieved in a variety of WG modes coupled to various species of paramagnetic ion within the sapphire.

We demonstrate that almost 100% of incident photons can interact with a monolayer of scatterers in a symmetrical environment. Nearly perfect optical extinction through free-standing transparent nanorod arrays has been measured. The sharp spectral opacity window, in the form of a characteristic Fano resonance, arises from the coherent multiple scattering in the array. In addition, we show that nanorods made of absorbing material exhibit a 25-fold absorption enhancement per unit volume compared to unstructured thin film. These results open new perspectives for light management in high-$Q$, low volume dielectric nanostructures, with potential applications in optical systems, spectroscopy, and optomechanics.

By sending circularly polarized light beams onto a homeotropic nematic liquid crystal cell with a photosensitive wall, we are able to locally induce spontaneous matter vortices that remain, each, stable and trapped at the chosen location. We discuss the dual light-matter nature of the created vortices and demonstrate the ability of the system to create optical vortices with opposite topological charges that, consistent with angular momentum conservation, both derive from the same defect created in the liquid crystal texture. Theoretically, we identify a self-stabilizing mechanism for the matter vortex, which is provided by the concurrency of light-induced gradients and anisotropy of the elastic constants that characterize the deformation of the liquid crystal medium.

The rotational dynamics of anisotropic particles advected in a turbulent fluid flow are important in many industrial and natural settings. Particle rotations are controlled by small scale properties of turbulence that are nearly universal, and so provide a rich system where experiments can be directly compared with theory and simulations. Here we report the first three-dimensional experimental measurements of the orientation dynamics of rodlike particles as they are advected in a turbulent fluid flow. We also present numerical simulations that show good agreement with the experiments and allow extension to a wide range of particle shapes. Anisotropic tracer particles preferentially sample the flow since their orientations become correlated with the velocity gradient tensor. The rotation rate is heavily influenced by this preferential alignment, and the alignment depends strongly on particle shape.

Colloidal capsules can sustain an external osmotic pressure; however, for a sufficiently large pressure, they will ultimately buckle. This process can be strongly influenced by structural inhomogeneities in the capsule shells. We explore how the time delay before the onset of buckling decreases as the shells are made more inhomogeneous; this behavior can be quantitatively understood by coupling shell theory with Darcy’s law. In addition, we show that the shell inhomogeneity can dramatically change the folding pathway taken by a capsule after it buckles.

An arch will grow on a rapidly deployed thin string in contact with a rigid plane. We present a qualitative model for the growing structure involving the amplification, rectification, and advection of slack in the presence of a steady stress field, validate our assumptions with numerical experiments, and pose new questions about the spatially developing motions of thin objects.

We demonstrate, for the first time, that photonic lattices support a new type of laser filaments, called lattice filaments (LF). The LF attributes (length, width, and intensity) can be tailored by both varying the photonic lattice properties and also dynamically through the interaction between filaments. This opens the way for extensive all-optical control of the nonlinear propagation of intense ultrafast wave packets. Our approach is generic and applicable to all transparent media, with potential strong impact on various photonic applications.

Bistable structures associated with nonlinear deformation behavior, exemplified by the Venus flytrap and slap bracelet, can switch between different functional shapes upon actuation. Despite numerous efforts in modeling such large deformation behavior of shells, the roles of mechanical and nonlinear geometric effects on bistability remain elusive. We demonstrate, through both theoretical analysis and tabletop experiments, that two dimensionless parameters control bistability. Our work classifies the conditions for bistability, and extends the large deformation theory of plates and shells.

We report results for the temperature profiles of turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection (RBC) in the interior of a cylindrical sample of aspect ratio $\Gamma \equiv D/L=0.50$ ($D$ and $L$ are the diameter and height, respectively). Both in the classical and in the ultimate state of RBC we find that the temperature varies as $A\times \ln (z/L)+B$, where $z$ is the distance from the bottom or top plate. In the classical state, the coefficient $A$ decreases in the radial direction as the distance from the side wall increases. For the ultimate state, the radial dependence of $A$ has not yet been determined. These findings are based on experimental measurements over the Rayleigh-number range $4\times {10}^{12}\lesssim \mathrm{Ra}\lesssim {10}^{15}$ for a Prandtl number $\mathrm{Pr}\simeq 0.8$ and on direct numerical simulation at $\mathrm{Ra}=2\times {10}^{12}$, $2\times {10}^{11}$, and $2\times {10}^{10}$, all for $\mathrm{Pr}=0.7$.

We report new experimental results which suggest that the generation of extreme wave events in the Faraday surface ripples is related to the increase in the horizontal mobility of oscillating solitons (oscillons). The analysis of the oscillon trajectories in a horizontal plane shows that at higher vertical acceleration, oscillons move chaotically, merge and form enclosed areas on the water surface. The probability of the formation of such craters, which precede large wave events, increases with the increase in horizontal mobility.

We study theoretically the propagation of relatively long pulses with ionizing intensities in a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber filled with a Raman-inactive noble gas. Because of photoionization, an extremely asymmetric self-phase modulation and a new kind of “universal” plasma-induced modulational instability appear in both normal and anomalous dispersion regions. We also show that it is possible to spontaneously generate a plasma-induced continuum of blueshifting solitons, opening up new possibilities for pushing supercontinuum generation towards shorter and shorter wavelengths.

Slow light induced by coherent population oscillations and cavity dispersive nonlinear response are combined achieving 2 orders of magnitude enhancement of the group delay and an equivalent decreasing of the spectral linewidth of a $L3$ two-dimensional photonic crystal nanocavity.

The nonlinear optical response to high fields is absolutely measured for the noble gas atoms He, Ne, Ar, Kr, and Xe. We find that the response is quadratic in the laser field magnitude up to the ionization threshold of each gas. Its size and quadratic dependence are well predicted by a Kramers-Kronig analysis employing known ionization probabilities, and the results are consistent with calculations using the time-dependent Schrödinger equation.

Folding a sheet of paper along a curve can lead to structures seen in decorative art and utilitarian packing boxes. Here we present a theory for the simplest such structure: an annular circular strip that is folded along a central circular curve to form a three-dimensional buckled structure driven by geometrical frustration. We quantify this shape in terms of the radius of the circle, the dihedral angle of the fold, and the mechanical properties of the sheet of paper and the fold itself. When the sheet is isometrically deformed everywhere except along the fold itself, stiff folds result in creases with constant curvature and oscillatory torsion. However, relatively softer folds inherit the broken symmetry of the buckled shape with oscillatory curvature and torsion. Our asymptotic analysis of the isometrically deformed state is corroborated by numerical simulations that allow us to generalize our analysis to study structures with multiple curved creases.

We produce oriented rotational wave packets in CO and measure their characteristics via high harmonic generation. The wave packet is created using an intense, femtosecond laser pulse and its second harmonic. A delayed 800 nm pulse probes the wave packet, generating even-order high harmonics that arise from the broken symmetry induced by the orientation dynamics. The even-order harmonic radiation that we measure appears on a zero background, enabling us to accurately follow the temporal evolution of the wave packet. Our measurements reveal that, for the conditions optimum for harmonic generation, the orientation is produced by preferential ionization which depletes the sample of molecules of one orientation.

We observed exact dynamic localization in its general case in strongly coupled curved waveguide arrays with periodic, nonsquare-wave curvatures. We achieved a six times change in the dynamic localization bandwidth by changing a design parameter in our deviated-square-wave curvature. By analyzing the relation between the bandwidth and curvature profile, we offer a general method to control the localization bandwidth.

We study the near-field heat exchange between hyperbolic materials and demonstrate that these media are able to support broadband frustrated modes which transport heat by photon tunneling with a high efficiency close to the theoretical limit. We predict that hyperbolic materials can be designed to be perfect thermal emitters at nanoscale and derive an upper limit for the heat flux due to hyperbolic modes.