Free cooling phase-diagram of hard-spheres with short- and long-range interactions

We study the stability, the clustering and the phase-diagram of free cooling granular gases. The systems consist of mono-disperse particles with additional non-contact (long-range) interactions, and are simulated here by the event-driven molecular dynamics algorithm with discrete (short-range shoulders or wells) potentials (in both 2D and 3D). Astonishingly good agreement is found with a mean field theory, where only the energy dissipation term is modified to account for both repulsive or attractive non-contact interactions. Attractive potentials enhance cooling and structure formation (clustering), whereas repulsive potentials reduce it, as intuition suggests. The system evolution is controlled by a single parameter: the non-contact potential strength scaled by the fluctuation kinetic energy (granular temperature). When this is small, as expected, the classical homogeneous cooling state is found. However, if the effective dissipation is strong enough, structure formation proceeds, before (in the repulsive case) non-contact forces get strong enough to undo the clustering (due to the ongoing dissipation of granular temperature). For both repulsive and attractive potentials, in the homogeneous regime, the cooling shows a universal behaviour when the (inverse) control parameter is used as evolution variable instead of time. The transition to a non-homogeneous regime, as predicted by stability analysis, is affected by both dissipation and potential strength. This can be cast into a phase diagram where the system changes with time, which leaves open many challenges for future research.     

The dynamics of quantum discord and entanglement of two atoms coupled to two spatially separate cavities in cavity QED

We demonstrate that a kind of highly excited state of strongly attractive Hubbard model, named of Fermi super-Tonks-Girardeau state, can be realized in the spin-1/2 Fermi optical lattice system by a sudden switch of interaction from the strongly repulsive regime to the strongly attractive regime. In contrast to the ground state of the attractive Hubbard model, such a state is the lowest scattering state with no pairing between attractive fermions. With the aid of Bethe-ansatz method, we calculate energies of both the Fermi Tonks-Girardeau gas and the Fermi super-Tonks-Girardeau state of spin-1/2 ultracold fermions and show that both energies approach to the same limit as the strength of the interaction goes to infinity. By exactly solving the quench dynamics of the Hubbard model, we demonstrate that the Fermi super-Tonks-Girardeau state can be transferred from the initial repulsive ground state very efficiently. This allows the experimental study of properties of Fermi super-Tonks-Girardeau gas in optical lattices.     

Oriented polymers: A transfer matrix calculation

Based on transfer matrix techniques and finite-size scaling, we study the oriented polymer (self-avoiding walk) with nearest neighbor interaction. In the repulsive regime, various critical exponents are computed and compared with exact values predicted recently. The polymer is also found to undergo a spiral transition for sufficiently strong attractive interaction. The fractal dimension of the polymer is computed in the repulsive and attractive regimes and at the spiral transition point. The later is found to be different from that at the collapse transition of the ordinary self-avoiding walk.     

Dynamics and structure of biopolyelectrolytes in repulsion regime characterized by dielectric spectroscopy

We overview the study of biopolyelectrolytes by dielectric spectroscopy technique by primarily focusing on the case of repulsive regime of intersegment interactions mediated by univalent counterions. Two observed dielectric relaxations in 100 Hz–100 MHz frequency range due to diffusive motion of counterions are related to polyelectrolyte structural properties: the high frequency mode probes the structural organization of the polyion network in solution, while the low frequency mode is correlated with single polyion conformational properties. Open issues are highlighted and prospects for further research with polyvalent counterions are designated in order to study the crossover from repulsive to attractive regime of intersegment interactions.     

Physical properties of dynamic force microscopies in contact and noncontact operation

In the field of Scanning Force Microscopy several dynamical contact and noncontact modes have been introduced increasing the range of detectable surface and interface properties, and allowing to detect material properties such as elasticity and mass density on the nanometer scale. A detailed understanding of tip/surface interactions and the dynamic processes involved is required to understand the origin of a material contrast using these techniques. Here a general method to solve the equation of motion of a vibrating SFM cantilever/tip system in an external force field is presented. Contact modes as well as intermittent contact modes are discussed using a single set of equations describing the cantilever/tip motion, and by varying the size of amplitudes of the vibrating cantilever/tip system. To quantitatively describe the oscillation behavior of the SFM cantilever at large amplitudes the computer simulations are based on the MYD/BHW model providing a realistic contact model with respect to the contact area, the size of the contact forces as well as the transition from repulsive to attractive forces. The results are compared with the experiment and with different approaches based on analytical and numerical models.     

Cooperative rearrangement regions and dynamical heterogeneities in colloidal glasses with attractive versus repulsive interactions

Water-lutidine mixtures permit the interparticle potentials of colloidal particles suspended therein to be tuned, in situ, from repulsive to attractive. We employ these systems to directly elucidate the effects of interparticle potential on glass dynamics in experimental samples composed of the same particles at the same packing fractions. Cooperative rearrangement regions (CRRs) and heterogeneous dynamics are observed in both types of glasses. Compared to repulsive glasses, the attractive glass dynamics are found to be heterogeneous over a wider range of time and length scales, and its CRRs involve more particles. Additionally, the CRRs are observed to be stringlike structures in repulsive glasses and compact structures in attractive glasses. Thus, the experiments demonstrate explicitly that glassy dynamics can depend on the sign of the interparticle interaction.     

Super-Tonks-Girardeau gas of spin-1/2 interacting fermions

Fermi gases confined in tight one-dimensional waveguides form two-particle bound states of atoms in the presence of a strongly attractive interaction. Based on the exact solution of the one-dimensional spin-1/2 interacting Fermi gas, we demonstrate that a stable excited state with no pairing between attractive fermionic atoms can be realized by a sudden switch of interaction from the strongly repulsive regime to strongly attractive regime. Such a state is an exact fermionic analog of the experimentally observed super-Tonks-Girardeau state of bosonic Cesium atoms [Science 325, 1224 (2009)] and should be possible to be observed by the experiment. The frequency of the lowest breathing mode of the fermionic super-Tonks-Girardeau gas is calculated as a function of the interaction strength, which could be used as a detectable signature for the experimental observation.     

Soliton trains in Bose-Fermi mixtures

We theoretically consider the formation of bright solitons in a mixture of Bose and Fermi degenerate gases. While we assume the forces between atoms in a pure Bose component to be effectively repulsive, their character can be changed from repulsive to attractive in the presence of fermions provided the Bose and Fermi gases attract each other strongly enough. In such a regime the Bose component becomes a gas of effectively attractive atoms. Hence, generating bright solitons in the bosonic gas is possible. Indeed, after a sudden increase of the strength of attraction between bosons and fermions (realized by using a Feshbach resonance technique or by firm radial squeezing of both samples) soliton trains appear in the Bose-Fermi mixture.     

Attractive and repulsive Casimir vacuum energy with general boundary conditions

The infrared behaviour of quantum field theories confined in bounded domains is strongly dependent on the shape and structure of space boundaries. The most significant physical effect arises in the behaviour of the vacuum energy. The Casimir energy can be attractive or repulsive depending on the nature of the boundary. We calculate the vacuum energy for a massless scalar field confined between two homogeneous parallel plates with the most general type of boundary conditions depending on four parameters. The analysis provides a powerful method to identify which boundary conditions generate attractive or repulsive Casimir forces between the plates. In the interface between both regimes we find a very interesting family of boundary conditions which do not induce any type of Casimir force. We also show that the attractive regime holds far beyond identical boundary conditions for the two plates required by the Kenneth–Klich theorem and that the strongest attractive Casimir force appears for periodic boundary conditions whereas the strongest repulsive Casimir force corresponds to anti-periodic boundary conditions. Most of the analysed boundary conditions are new and some of them can be physically implemented with metamaterials.     

Pinning in superconductors with attractive and repulsive interaction defect-flux line

We illustrate some results of the statistical theory of pinning as well as the processes which lead to the existence of volume pinning force, and calculate some quantities determining the pinning and other effects in type II superconductors by means of a model potential for both attractive and repulsive interactions between individual defects and individual flux lines. For some of these quantities (e.g. the volume pinning force) in superconductors with line defects perpendicular to the flux lines, we find large differences with respect to the shape and character (attractive, repulsive) of the interaction potential, whereas other quantities (e.g. the maximum reversible displacement of the flux line lattice, the force on the flux line lattice in the reversible regime) are rather little dependent on the shape and the character of the interaction potential.     

Detection of spatial correlations in an ultracold gas of fermions

Spatial correlations are observed in an ultracold gas of fermionic atoms close to a Feshbach resonance. The correlations are detected by inducing spin-changing rf transitions between pairs of atoms. We observe the process in the strongly interacting regime for attractive as well as for repulsive atom-atom interactions and both in the regime of high and low quantum degeneracy. The observations are compared with a two-particle model that provides theoretical predictions for the measured rf transition rates.     

Trail formation and condensation of trajectories in a direct walker model with feedback

A directed walker model with external memory is studied by numerical simulations and statistical approaches. The structure of the trail systems depends strongly on the microscopic realization of the feedback mechanism and on the general repulsive or attractive interaction between different paths. Especially, we find nonergodic behavior for kinetic attraction and an ergodic one for repulsive interaction. The strong attraction regime shows a pronounced condensation of trajectories to one common path.     

Forces and currents in carbon nanostructures: are we imaging atoms?

First-principles calculations show that the rich variety of image patterns found in carbon nanostructures with the atomic force and scanning tunneling microscopes can be rationalized in terms of the chemical reactivity of the tip and the distance range explored in the experiments. For weakly reactive tips, the Pauli repulsion dominates the atomic contrast and force maxima are expected on low electronic density positions as the hollow site. With reactive tips, the interaction is strong enough to change locally the hybridization of the carbon atoms, making it possible to observe atomic resolution in both the attractive and the repulsive regime although with inverted contrast. Regarding STM images, we show that in the near-contact regime, due to current saturation, bright spots correspond to hollow positions instead of atomic sites, providing an explanation for the most common hexagonal pattern found in the experiments.     

Resonant enhancement and dissipation in nonequilibrium van der Waals forces

Dispersion forces between molecules that are in relative motion, coupled to baths at different temperatures, or in excited states, are calculated using a Green function Liouville space expansion that extends the celebrated McLachlan response theory to the nonlinear regime. Our dynamical theory is applicable to systems that may be in any initial nonequilibrium state and that are subject to an arbitrary time-dependent coupling. In contrast to equilibrium forces which are attractive, nonequilibrium forces may be attractive or repulsive, exhibit chemically specific resonances, are far stronger, and may be nonconservative (with either positive or negative dissipation).     

Rotating matter waves in Bose-Einstein condensates

In this paper we consider analytically and numerically the dynamics of waves in two-dimensional, magnetically trapped Bose-Einstein condensates in the weak interaction limit. In particular, we consider the existence and stability of azimuthally modulated structures such as rings, multi-poles, soliton necklaces, and vortex necklaces. We show how such structures can be constructed from the linear limit through Lyapunov-Schmidt techniques and continued to the weakly nonlinear regime. Subsequently, we examine their stability, and find that among the above solutions the only one which is always stable is the vortex necklace. The analysis is given for both attractive and repulsive interactions among the condensate atoms. Finally, the analysis is corroborated by numerical bifurcation results, as well as by numerical evolution results that showcase the manifestation of the relevant instabilities.     

Surface diffusion of k-mers in one-dimensional systems

The surface diffusion of interacting k-mers is studied both through analytical and Monte Carlo simulation methods in one-dimensional systems. Adsorption isotherms, jump diffusion coefficients and collective diffusion coefficients are obtained for attractive and repulsive k-mers, showing a variety of behaviors as a function of the size of particles, k. The following main results are found: (a) diffusion coefficients increase with k for non-interacting particles; (b) for fixed k, diffusion coefficients increase as the interaction energy increases from negative (attractive) to positive (repulsive) values; (c) for attractive interactions diffusion coefficients increase with k in the whole range of coverage; (d) for repulsive interactions diffusion coefficients decrease with k up to moderately high coverage and increase with k at high coverage. Results are rationalized in terms of the behavior of the vacancy probability distribution.     

Fluctuation-induced couplings between defect lines or particle chains

One-dimensional structures such as defect lines or chains of dipolar particles are generally subject to strong Landau-Peierls thermal fluctuations. Coupling between these fluctuations in parallel lines may lead to an attractive force, analogous to the London force, or to a repulsive force of entropic origin. We analyze these forces for chains of electric dipoles and for flux lines in isotropic superconductors. In the first case the force is attractive, and can significantly change the Hamaker constant, which governs the attraction between colloidal particles. In the second case, over much of the magnetic field-temperature phase diagram the force is repulsive, and dominates over the direct repulsive interaction between flux lines.