Related papers: Structural transition of force chains observed by …
Recent experimental data indicates that the fine structure constant alpha may be varying on cosmological time scales. We consider the possibility that such a variation could be induced by a second order phase transition which occurs at late…
Motivated by the existence of mobile low-energy excitations like domain walls in one dimension or gauge-charged fractionalized particles in higher dimensions, we compare quantum dynamics in the presence of weak Markovian dephasing for a…
Processes of mixing and segregation in a packed bed of granular material stirred by a periodically moving rectangular bar are simulated by the discrete element method (DEM). Influence of mechanical properties of the particle material…
By considering subexponential contributions in large deviation theory, we determine the fine structure in the probability distribution of the observable displacement of a bead coupled to a molecular motor. More generally, for any stochastic…
We study, using simulations the dynamical properties of complex ferromagnetic granular materials. The system of grains is modeled by a disordered two-dimensional lattice in which the grains are embedded, while the magnitude and direction of…
When compressed frictional granular media are decompressed, generically a fragile configuration is created at low pressures. Typically this is accompanied by a giant frictional slippage as the fragile state collapses. We show that this…
We explore very fine scales of scalar dissipation in turbulent mixing, below Kolmogorov and around Batchelor scales, by performing direct numerical simulations at much finer grid resolution than is usually adopted in the past. We consider…
Recent years have witnessed a great research boom in soft matter physics. by now, most advances, however, are of either empirical results or purely mathematical extensions. The major obstacle is lacking of insights into fundamental…
We describe the shear flow of a disordered granular material in the presence of grain fracture using the shear-transformation-zone (STZ) theory of amorphous plasticity adapted to systems with a hard-core inter-particle interaction. To this…
We perform molecular dynamics simulations of homogeneous athermal systems of poly-disperse soft discs under shear. For purely repulsive interactions between particles, and under a confining external pressure, a monotonous flow curve (strain…
We perform a detailed analysis of the contact force network in a dense confined packing of pentagonal particles simulated by means of the contact dynamics method. The effect of particle shape is evidenced by comparing the data from pentagon…
We investigate the dynamic evolution of jamming in granular media through fluctuations in the granular drag force. The successive collapse and formation of jammed states give a stick-slip nature to the fluctuations which is independent of…
Recent theoretical ideas and observational claims suggest that the fine structure constant alpha may be variable. We examine a spectrum of models in which alpha is a function of a scalar field. Specifically, we consider three scenarios:…
Effect of a complicated many-body environment is analyzed on the chaotic motion of a quantum particle in a mesoscopic ballistic structure. The dephasing and absorption phenomena are treated on the same footing in the framework of a…
At large anisotropies, the spectrum of the Heisenberg XXZ spin chain separates into `bands' with energies largely determined by the number of domain walls. The band structure is richer with open boundary conditions: there are more bands and…
The structure and degree of order in soft matter and other materials is intimately connected to the nature of the interactions between the particles. One important research goal is to find suitable control mechanisms, to enhance or suppress…
We use numerical simulations to study the behavior of 2D frictionless disk systems under cyclic shear as a function of reversal amplitude \gamma_r. Our studies focus on mean bulk and disk dynamics. These measurements suggest a crossover…
Predicting rapid and slower soil evolution remains a scientific challenge. This process involves poorly understood aspects of disordered granular matter and dense suspension dynamics. This study presents a novel two-dimensional experiment…
Granular media near jamming exhibit fascinating properties, which can be harnessed to create jammed-granulate metamaterials: materials whose characteristics arise not only from the shape and material properties of the particles at the…
Granular materials such as sand, powders, foams etc. are ubiquitous in our daily life, as well as in industrial and geotechnical applications. Although these disordered systems form stable structures if unperturbed, in practice they do…