Bistable behaviour in squeezed vacua: II. Stability analysis and chaos

Linear stability analysis and (numerical) investigation of the periodic and chaotic self-pulsing behaviour are presented for the Maxwell-Bloch equations of a bistable model in contact with a squeezed vacuum field. Effect of the squeeze phase parameter on the period doubling bifurcation that preceeds chaos is examined for the adiabatic and non-adiabatic regimes.     

An evolutionary model of social networks

Social networks in communities, markets, and societies self-organise through the interactions of many individuals. In this paper we use a well-known mechanism of social interactions — the balance of sentiment in triadic relations — to describe the development of social networks. Our model contrasts with many existing network models, in that people not only establish but also break up relations whilst the network evolves. The procedure generates several interesting network features such as a variety of degree distributions and degree correlations. The resulting network converges under certain conditions to a steady critical state where temporal disruptions in triangles follow a power-law distribution.     

Approximate importance sampling Monte Carlo for data assimilation

Importance sampling Monte Carlo offers powerful approaches to approximating Bayesian updating in sequential problems. Specific classes of such approaches are known as particle filters. These procedures rely on the simulation of samples or ensembles of the unknown quantities and the calculation of associated weights for the ensemble members. As time evolves and/or when applied in high-dimensional settings, such as those of interest in many data assimilation problems, these weights typically display undesirable features. The key difficulty involves a collapse toward approximate distributions concentrating virtually all of their probability on an implausibly few ensemble members.

After reviewing ensembling, Monte Carlo, importance sampling and particle filters, we present some approximations intended to moderate the problem of collapsing weights. The motivations for these suggestions are combinations of (i) the idea that key dynamical behavior in many systems actually takes place on a low dimensional manifold, and (ii) notions of statistical dimension reduction. We illustrate our suggestions in a problem of inference for ocean surface winds and atmospheric pressure. Real observational data are used.     

Combination of two basic types of synchronization in a coupled semiconductor laser system

Combination of two basic types of synchronization, anticipatory synchronization and lagged synchronization, is investigated numerically between two coupled semiconductor lasers. It is found that lagged synchronization produced by a backward coupling with a suitable delay can combine with the originally hidden anticipatory synchronization and produce a type of synchronization overcoming the original lagged synchronization produced by a forward coupling. We study the combination synchronization phenomenon when the delay of the backward coupling is different from that of the original anticipatory synchronization. Our results suggest that the synchronization combination phenomenon might allow an interpretation of an experimental observation by Sivaprakasam et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 154101 (2001)] that the anticipating time is irrespective of the external-cavity round trip time, which to date remains to be understood.     

Identifying the underlying structure and dynamic interactions in a voting network

We analyse the structure and behaviour of a specific voting network using a dynamic structure-based methodology which draws on Q-Analysis and social network theory. Our empirical focus is on the Eurovision Song Contest over a period of 20 years. For a multicultural contest of this kind, one of the key questions is how the quality of a song is judged and how voting groups emerge. We investigate structures that may identify the winner based purely on the topology of the network. This provides a basic framework to identify what the characteristics associated with becoming a winner are, and may help to establish a homogenous criterion for subjective measures such as quality. Further, we measure the importance of voting cliques, and present a dynamic model based on a changing multidimensional measure of connectivity in order to reveal the formation of emerging community structure within the contest. Finally, we study the dynamic behaviour exhibited by the network in order to understand the clustering of voting preferences and the relationship between local and global properties.     

Partition coefficients of organic molecules in squalane and water/ethanol mixtures by molecular dynamics simulations

Accurate partition coefficient data of migrants between a polymer and a solvent are of paramount importance for estimating the migration of the migrant over time, including the concentration of the migrant at infinite time in the two solvents. In this article it is shown how this partition coefficient can be estimated for both a small hydrophilic and a hydrophobic organic molecules between squalane (used here to mimic low density poly ethylene) and water/ethanol solutes using thermodynamic integration to calculate the free energy of solvation. Molecular dynamics simulations are performed, using the GROMACS software, by slowly decoupling of firstly the electrostatic and then the Lennard-Jones interactions between molecules in the simulation box. These calculations depend very much on the choice of force field. Two force fields have been tested in this work, the TraPPE-UA (united-atom) and the OPLS-AA (all-atom). The computational cheaper TraPPE-UA force field showed to be more accurate over the whole range of systems compared to the OPLS-AA force field. Moreover, some of the calculations were done with five different water models to investigate the influence of the specific water model on the calculations. It was found that the combination of the TraPPE-UA force field and the TIP4p water model gave the best results. Based on the methodology proposed in this article, it is possible to obtain good partition coefficients only knowing the chemical structure of the molecules in the system.     

Stability of Relative Equilibria. Part II: Dumbell Satellites

In the second part a practically important problem, namely the stability of relative equilibria of a dumbell satellite on an orbit around the Earth is treated by means of the reduced energy-momentum method. The dumbell satellite is used to emphasize the advantages of the reduced energy-momentum method which did not become obvious in the simple example of the rotating pendulum treated in Part I, as well as, to discuss some of the finer technical details.     

分子反应动态学中的势能面和非线性

势能面在分子反应动态学中起着无以替代的作用，对它的研究始终是化学物理学界的一个热点问题，而一性科学技术的发展和应用，又为分子反应动态学展示了许多丰富多彩的内容。同时，这两个领域又有许多交叉点。本文综述了这两个领域的最新进展。     

Dynamics of surface dipole and tripole solitons in nonlocal nonlinear media with optical lattice field

We find the existence conditions for stationary dipole and tripole surface solitons formed at the interface of a nonlocal nonlinear medium and a lattice with linearly modulated frequency. We investigate how the degree of nonlocality, the depth, and the modulation frequency of the optical lattice field affect on the existence of the surface solitons and their dynamics. The relationship between the power and the model parameters is identified. The stability of the surface dipole and tripole solitons is numerically investigated.     

Structural and dynamical properties of iridium surfaces: First principles and molecular dynamics investigations

The structural and dynamical properties of Ir(1 0 0) clean surface are investigated in the temperature range 100-1100 K. We performed molecular dynamics (MD) simulations using the interaction potential energies obtained from the density-functional theory (DFT) and plane-wave pseudopotential (PWPP) method. The obtained contraction of the first interlayer distance, d₁₂ , decreases from −4.94% at 100 K to −4.84% at 1100 K. This decrease deviates by 11.8% at 100 K to 13.6% at 1100 K, from that at 0 K (−5.6%). The expansion of the second interlayer distance, d₂₃, however increases from 0.89% at 100 K to 1% at 1100 K, causing a deviation that ranges from −11% to 0% from that at 0 K (1%). The deviation of the calculated surface vibrational frequencies and surface relaxations over the entire range of temperatures (100-1100 K) is rather modest as a result of small anharmonic effects of the surface.