Collective Thermotaxis of Thermally Active Colloids
ArXiv 1110.1603 (2011)
Abstract:
Colloids with patchy metal coating under laser irradiation could act as local sources of heat due to the absorption of light. While for asymmetric colloids this could induce self-propulsion, it also leads to the generation of a slowly decaying temperature profile that other colloids could interact with. The collective behavior of a dilute solution of such thermally active particles is studied using a stochastic formulation. It is found that when the Soret coefficient is positive, the system could be described in stationary-state by the nonlinear Poisson-Boltzmann equation and could adopt density profiles with significant depletion in the middle region when confined. For colloids with negative Soret coefficient, the system can be described as a dissipative equivalent of a gravitational system. It is shown that in this case the thermally active colloidal solution could undergo an instability at a critical laser intensity, which has similarities to supernova explosion.Integrable modification of the critical Chalker-Coddington network model
Physical Review B American Physical Society (APS) 84:14 (2011) 144201
Integrable modification of the critical Chalker-Coddington network model
Physical Review B American Physical Society (APS) 84:14 (2011) 144201
Abstract:
We consider the Chalker-Coddington network model for the integer quantum Hall effect, and examine the possibility of solving it exactly. In the supersymmetric path integral framework, we introduce a truncation procedure, leading to a series of well-defined two-dimensional loop models with two loop flavors. In the phase diagram of the first-order truncated model, we identify four integrable branches related to the dilute Birman-Wenzl-Murakami braid-monoid algebra and parameterized by the loop fugacity n. In the continuum limit, two of these branches (1,2) are described by a pair of decoupled copies of a Coulomb-gas theory, whereas the other two branches (3,4) couple the two loop flavors, and relate to an SU(2)r×SU(2)r/SU(2)2r Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) coset model for the particular values n=−2cos[π/(r+2)], where r is a positive integer. The truncated Chalker-Coddington model is the n=0 point of branch 4. By numerical diagonalization, we find that its universality class is neither an analytic continuation of the WZW coset nor the universality class of the original Chalker-Coddington model. It constitutes rather an integrable, critical approximation to the latter.Topological phase transition in a network model with preferential attachment and node removal
EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL B 83:4 (2011) 519-524
Abstract:
Preferential attachment is a popular model of growing networks. We consider a generalized model with random node removal, and a combination of preferential and random attachment. Using a high-degree expansion of the master equation, we identify a topological phase transition depending on the rate of node removal and the relative strength of preferential vs. random attachment, where the degree distribution goes from a power law to one with an exponential tail.Charge Transport in Weyl Semimetals
(2011)