Related papers: Spontaneous crystallization noise in mirrors of gr…
In supercooled liquids, vitrification generally suppresses crystallization. Yet some glasses can still crystallize despite the arrest of diffusive motion. This ill-understood process may limit the stability of glasses, but its microscopic…
Crystallization and vitrification are two different routes to form a solid. Normally these two processes suppress each other, with the glass transition preventing crystallization at high density (or low temperature). This is even true for…
Any material in thermal equilibrium exhibits fundamental thermodynamic fluctuations of its mechanical and optical properties. Such thermodynamic fluctuations of length, elastic constants, and refractive index of amorphous materials -- like…
We study by molecular dynamics the interplay between arrest and crystallization in hard spheres. For state points in the plane of volume fraction ($0.54 \leq phi \leq 0.63$) and polydispersity ($0 \leq s \leq 0.085$), we delineate states…
A gravitational wave stochastic background of astrophysical origin may have resulted from the superposition of a large number of unresolved sources since the beginning of stellar activity. Its detection would put very strong constrains on…
Glasses are structurally liquid-like, but mechanically solid-like. Most attempts to understand glasses start from liquid state theory. Here we take the opposite point of view, and use concepts from solid state physics. We determine the…
Vortex crystals are geometric arrays of vortices found in various physics fields, owing their regular internal structure to mutual interactions within a spatially confined system. In optics, vortex crystals may form spontaneously within a…
Gravitational lensing magnification is maximal around caustics. At these source locations, an incoming wave from a point source would formally experience an infinite amplification in the high-frequency or geometric optics limit. This…
Just like light, gravitational waves (GWs) are deflected and magnified by gravitational fields as they propagate through the Universe. However, their low frequency, phase coherence and feeble coupling to matter allow for distinct lensing…
We discuss the gravitational lensing of gravitational wave signals from coalescing binaries. We delineate the regime where wave effects are significant from the regime where geometric limit can be used. Further, we focus on the effect of…
Angular fluctuations of suspended mirrors in gravitational wave interferometers are a source of noise both for the locking and the operation of the detectors. We describe here some of the sources of these fluctuations and methods for the…
Glass stability (GS) indicates the glass reluctance or ability to crystallise upon heating; it can be characterised by several methods and parameters and is frequently used to retrieve glass-forming ability (GFA) of corresponding liquids as…
Atomic vibrations in perfect, slightly defective or mixed crystals are to a large extent well understood since many decades. Theoretical descriptions are thus in excellent agreement with the experiments. As a consequence, phonon-related…
Thermodynamical fluctuations of temperature in mirrors of gravitational wave antennae are transformed through thermal expansion coefficient into additional noise. This source of noise, which may also be interpreted as fluctuations due to…
Crystalline materials are promising candidates as substrates or high-reflective coatings of mirrors to reduce thermal noises in future laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors. However, birefringence of such materials could…
Gravitational waves are perturbations in the spacetime that propagate at the speed of light. The study of such phenomenon is interesting because many cosmological processes and astrophysical objects, such as binary systems, are potential…
By molecular-dynamics simulations, we have studied the devitrification (or crystallization) of aged hard-sphere glasses. First, we find that the dynamics of the particles are intermittent: Quiescent periods, when the particles simply…
ZBLAN glass is a promising material for infrared optical fibers due to its wide transmission window and low theoretical attenuation. However, its strong tendency to crystallize during processing limits optical performance. While…
Gravitational wave detectors, such as KAGRA, require complex mirror suspension systems to reach high sensitivity. One particular concern in these suspensions is the presence of crackling noise, where motion of the steel crystal structure…
A wide range of materials can exist in microscopically disordered solid forms, referred to as amorphous solids or glasses. Such materials -- oxide glasses and metallic glasses, to polymer glasses, and soft solids such as colloidal glasses,…