The conditions during light emission from the fracture of solids have been difficult to determine because such mechanoluminescence (ML) is usually weak. When ML is produced by acoustic cavitation of a liquid slurry of resorcinol crystals, however, we observe bright light emission, which makes it possible to measure plasma conditions by emission spectra: a bimodal heavy atom emission temperature profile is observed with $405\pm 22\mathrm{K}$ (for 80% of emitting CH) and $4015\pm 730\mathrm{K}$ (for 20%), with an electron density and energy of $1.3\pm 0.13\times {10}^{14}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$ and $\sim 3.5\mathrm{eV}$ (i.e., an effective $T_e\sim 41\hspace{0.17em}000\mathrm{K}$).

We present an experimental study of the aspect-ratio dependence of two-phase displacement flows in channels of rectangular cross section. Above a buoyancy-dependent threshold ${\widehat{\mathrm{Ca}}}_t$, we find that the bulk features of the flow depend only on a modified capillary number $\widehat{\mathrm{Ca}}=[1+0.12(\alpha -1)+0.018(\alpha -1{)}^2]\mathrm{Ca}$, where Ca is the unmodified capillary number and $\alpha$ is the aspect ratio. This novel scaling has tremendous practical significance because it implies that the bulk features of the flows in any rectangular channel can be inferred from those in a square channel for $\widehat{\mathrm{Ca}}>{\widehat{\mathrm{Ca}}}_t$.

Nonuniform evaporation from sessile droplets induces radial convection within the drop, which produces the well-known “coffee-ring” effect. The evaporation also induces a gradient in temperature and consequently a gradient in surface tension, generating a Marangoni flow. Here we investigate theoretically and experimentally the thermal Marangoni flow and establish criteria to gauge its influence. An asymptotic analysis indicates that the direction of the flow depends on the relative thermal conductivities of the substrate and liquid, $k_R\equiv k_S/k_L$, reversing direction at a critical contact angle over the range $1.45<k_R<2$. We corroborate the theory experimentally and demonstrate that the Marangoni flow can significantly influence the resulting patterns of particle deposition.

We study the dynamics of a flexible foil immersed in a fluid and moving close to a rigid wall. Lubrication theory allows us to derive equations of motion for the foil and thus examine the passive settling and the active swimming of a foil. This also allows us to partly answer the long-standing question in cartoon physics—can carpets fly? Our analysis suggests a region in parameter space where one may realize this dream and move the virtual towards reality.

Self-compression of attosecond high-order harmonic pulses in the harmonic generation medium itself has been demonstrated. The attosecond pulses were generated in an argon-filled gas cell and compressed by exploiting the dispersion characteristics of argon. Since the harmonic generation medium itself was used as the compression medium, continuous chirp control was easily achieved by adjusting the gas pressure. The optimized attosecond pulse was also the most intense, and its duration of 206 as was very close to the transform-limited value of 200 as.

In this Letter we propose an original mechanism to select scar modes through coherent gain amplification in a multimode $D$-shaped fiber. More precisely, we demonstrate the selective amplification of scar modes by positioning a gain region in the vicinity of the self-focal point of the shortest periodic orbit in the transverse motion.

We report direct numerical simulations of dynamo generation for flow generated using a Taylor-Green forcing. We find that the bifurcation is subcritical and show its bifurcation diagram. We connect the associated hysteretic behavior with hydrodynamics changes induced by the action of the Lorentz force. We show the geometry of the dynamo magnetic field and discuss how the dynamo transition can be induced when an external field is applied to the flow.

We calculate the correction, due to nonlinear wave-wave interactions, to the Zel’dovich estimate for the turbulent diffusivity of magnetic fields in a model of two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic turbulence in the presence of stable stratification. Such a model has some relevance to hydromagnetic turbulence in stellar interiors. The significance of this correction is that, unlike the lowest-order Zel’dovich balance, it is independent of the molecular resistivity $\eta$ and so will not vanish in the limit of a large magnetic Reynolds number, although the correction is $O({\sigma }^4)$, where $\sigma$ is the wave slope, which necessarily is small. Thus, we are led to the counterintuitive result that the presence of stable stratification can actually increase the vertical flux of magnetic fields relative to that in 2D MHD turbulence without stratification.

We study the dynamics of a two-color photoassociation of atoms into diatomic molecules via nonlinear stimulated Raman adiabatic passage process. The system has a famous counterpart in (linear) quantum mechanics, and has been discussed recently in the context of generalizing the quantum adiabatic theorem to nonlinear systems. Here we use another approach to study adiabaticity and stability in the system: we apply methods of classical Hamiltonian dynamics. We find nonlinear dynamical instabilities, cases of complete integrability, and improved conditions of adiabaticity.

We experimentally study dispersive shock waves in nonlinear waveguide arrays. In contrast with gap solitons, the nonlinearity here pushes the propagation constant further into the transmission bands, facilitating Bloch mode coupling and energy transport. We directly observe this coupling, both within and between bands, by recording intensity in position space and power spectra in momentum space.

Excitation of unbalanced-Bessel beams by a gradual increase of nonlinearity in a water sample outlines the achievement of the first ever observed quasimonochromatic wave packet that propagates stably for hundreds of Rayleigh lengths in a focusing and dispersive Kerr medium, i.e., in the absence of spectral broadening and conical emission. A modulational instability analysis reveals the key role of nonlinear dissipation in quenching the growth of spatiotemporal unstable modes.

We study the mobility of solitons in lattices with quadratic (${\chi }^{(2)}$, alias second-harmonic-generating) nonlinearity. Using the notion of the Peierls-Nabarro potential and systematic numerical simulations, we demonstrate that, in contrast with their cubic (${\chi }^{(3)}$) counterparts, the discrete quadratic solitons are mobile not only in the one-dimensional (1D) setting, but also in two dimensions (2D), in any direction. We identify parametric regions where an initial kick applied to a soliton leads to three possible outcomes: staying put, persistent motion, or destruction. On the 2D lattice, the solitons survive the largest kick and attain the largest speed along the diagonal direction.

We study the dynamics of periodic arrays of micrometer-sized liquid-gas menisci formed at superhydrophobic surfaces immersed into water. By measuring the intensity of optical diffraction peaks in real time, we are able to resolve nanometer-scale oscillations of the menisci with submicrosecond time resolution. Upon driving the system with an ultrasound field at variable frequency, we observe a pronounced resonance at a few hundred kilohertz, depending on the exact geometry. By modeling the system using the unsteady Stokes equation, we find that this low resonance frequency is caused by a collective mode of the acoustically coupled oscillating menisci.

We report the first observation of Airy optical beams. This intriguing class of wave packets, initially predicted by Berry and Balazs in 1979, has been realized in both one- and two-dimensional configurations. As demonstrated in our experiments, these Airy beams can exhibit unusual features such as the ability to remain diffraction-free over long distances while they tend to freely accelerate during propagation.

The statistical properties of self-replicating spots in the reaction-diffusion Gray-Scott model are analyzed. In the chaotic regime of the system, the spots that dominate the spatiotemporal chaos grow and divide in two or decay into the background randomly and continuously. The rates at which the spots are created and decay are observed to be linearly dependent on the number of spots in the system. We derive a probabilistic description of the spot dynamics based on the statistical independence of spots and thus propose a characterization of the spatiotemporal chaos dominated by replicating spots.

We find that the global symbolic dynamics of a diffusively coupled map lattice is well approximated by a very small local model for weak to moderate coupling strengths. A local symbolic model is a truncation of the full symbolic model to one that considers only a single element and a few neighbors. Using interval analysis, we give rigorous results for a range of coupling strengths and different local model widths. Examples are presented of extracting a local symbolic model from data and of controlling spatiotemporal chaos.

By using a theoretical formalism able to work in both real and $k$ spaces, the physical origin of the phenomenon of extraordinary transmission of light through quasiperiodic arrays of holes is revealed. Long-range order present in a quasiperiodic array selects the wave vector(s) of the surface electromagnetic mode(s) that allows an efficient transmission of light through subwavelength holes.

Using a new general approach to limits in optical structures that counts orthogonal waves generated by scattering, we derive an upper limit to the number of bits of delay possible in one-dimensional slow light structures that are based on linear optical response to the signal field. The limit is essentially the product of the length of the structure in wavelengths and the largest relative change in dielectric constant anywhere in the structure at any frequency of interest. It holds for refractive index, absorption, or gain variations with arbitrary spectral or spatial form. It is otherwise completely independent of the details of the structure’s design, and does not rely on concepts of group velocity or group delay.

We show that the usual Fresnel formulas for a free-propagating pulse are not applicable for a forced terahertz electromagnetic pulse supported by an optical pulse at the end of a nonlinear crystal. The correct linear reflection and transmission coefficients that we derive show that such pulses can experience a gain or loss at the boundary. This energy change depends on linear dielectric constants only. We also predict a regime where a complete disappearance of the forced pulse under oblique incidence occurs, an effect that has no counterpart for free-propagating pulses.

In a Rayleigh-Taylor instability a dense fluid sits metastably atop a less dense fluid, a configuration that can be stabilized using a magnetic field gradient when one fluid is highly paramagnetic. On switching off the magnetic field, the instability occurs as the dense fluid falls under gravity. By affixing appropriately shaped magnetically permeable wires to the outside of the cell, one may impose arbitrarily chosen and well-controlled initial perturbations on the interface. This technique is used to examine both the linear and nonlinear growth regimes for which the perturbation amplitudes, growth rates, and nonlinear growth coefficients are obtained.