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Full-Text Articles in Physics

Hypo-Osmotic Stress And Pore-Forming Toxins Adjust The Lipid Order In Sheep Red Blood Cell Membranes, Rose Whiting, Sevio Stanton, Maryna Kucheriava, Aviana R. Smith, Matt Pitts, Daniel Robertson, Jacob Kammer, Zhiyu Li, Daniel Fologea Jul 2023

Hypo-Osmotic Stress And Pore-Forming Toxins Adjust The Lipid Order In Sheep Red Blood Cell Membranes, Rose Whiting, Sevio Stanton, Maryna Kucheriava, Aviana R. Smith, Matt Pitts, Daniel Robertson, Jacob Kammer, Zhiyu Li, Daniel Fologea

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Lipid ordering in cell membranes has been increasingly recognized as an important factor in establishing and regulating a large variety of biological functions. Multiple investigations into lipid organization focused on assessing ordering from temperature-induced phase transitions, which are often well outside the physiological range. However, particular stresses elicited by environmental factors, such as hypo-osmotic stress or protein insertion into membranes, with respect to changes in lipid status and ordering at constant temperature are insufficiently described. To fill these gaps in our knowledge, we exploited the well-established ability of environmentally sensitive membrane probes to detect intramembrane changes at the molecular level. …


Leidenfrost Pattern Formation And Boiling, Prasanth Prabhakaran, Alexei Krekhov, Eberhard Bodenschatz, Stephan Weiss Apr 2019

Leidenfrost Pattern Formation And Boiling, Prasanth Prabhakaran, Alexei Krekhov, Eberhard Bodenschatz, Stephan Weiss

Department of Physics Publications

We report on Leidenfrost patterns and boiling with compressed sulfur hexafluoride ( SF6). The experiments were carried out in a large aspect ratio Rayleigh–Bénard convection cell, where the distance between the horizontal plates is comparable with the capillary length of the working fluid. Pressures and temperatures were chosen such that the bottom plate was above and the top plate was below the liquid–vapor transition temperature of SF6. As a result, SF6 vapor condenses at the top plate and forms drops that grow in size. Leidenfrost patterns are formed as the drops do not fall but …


Reversible Motion In A Contact Line, Audrey Profeta, Esmeralda Orozco, Juan A. Ortiz Salazar, Dani Medina, Nathan C. Keim Sep 2018

Reversible Motion In A Contact Line, Audrey Profeta, Esmeralda Orozco, Juan A. Ortiz Salazar, Dani Medina, Nathan C. Keim

STAR Program Research Presentations

When a body of liquid sits on a surface, an irregular border between the wet and dry regions of the surface exists, called the contact line. Driving this contact line back and forth repeatedly can change its shape.We use a syringe pump to cyclically infuse and withdraw a predetermined volume of water, and take photos of the contact line after each cycle. Comparing these images to each other determines if the contact line is returning to the same shape. We find that below a critical value of infused volume, after many cycles the contact line reaches a steady state in …


Spatial And Temporal Correlations Of Xy Macro Spins, Robert Streubel, Noah Kent, Scott Dhuey, Andreas Scholl, Steve Kevan, Peter Fischer Sep 2018

Spatial And Temporal Correlations Of Xy Macro Spins, Robert Streubel, Noah Kent, Scott Dhuey, Andreas Scholl, Steve Kevan, Peter Fischer

Robert Streubel Papers

We use nano disk arrays with square and honeycomb symmetry to investigate magnetic phases and spin correlations of XY dipolar systems at the micro scale. Utilizing magnetization sensitive X-ray photoemission electron microscopy, we probe magnetic ground states and the “order-by-disorder” phenomenon predicted 30 years ago. We observe the antiferromagnetic striped ground state in square lattices, and 6-fold symmetric structures, including trigonal vortex lattices and disordered floating vortices, in the honeycomb lattice. The spin frustration in the honeycomb lattice causes a phase transition from a long-range ordered locked phase over a floating phase with quasi long-range order and indications of a …


Phases And Phase Transitions In Disordered Quantum Systems, Thomas Vojta Oct 2013

Phases And Phase Transitions In Disordered Quantum Systems, Thomas Vojta

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

These lecture notes give a pedagogical introduction to phase transitions in disordered quantum systems and to the exotic Griffiths phases induced in their vicinity. We first review some fundamental concepts in the physics of phase transitions. We then derive criteria governing under what conditions spatial disorder or randomness can change the properties of a phase transition. After introducing the strong-disorder renormalization group method, we discuss in detail some of the exotic phenomena arising at phase transitions in disordered quantum systems. These include infinite-randomness criticality, rare regions and quantum Griffiths singularities, as well as the smearing of phase transitions. We also …


Self-Organized Criticality In Sheared Suspensions, L. Corté, Sharon J. Gerbode, W. Man, D. J. Pine Dec 2009

Self-Organized Criticality In Sheared Suspensions, L. Corté, Sharon J. Gerbode, W. Man, D. J. Pine

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

Recent studies reveal that suspensions of neutrally buoyant non-Brownian particles driven by slow periodic shear can undergo a dynamical phase transition between a fluctuating irreversible steady state and an absorbing reversible state. Using a computer model, we show that such systems exhibit self-organized criticality when a finite particle sedimentation velocity vs is introduced. Under periodic shear, these systems evolve, without external intervention, towards the shear-dependent critical concentration ϕc as vs is reduced. This state is characterized by power-law distributions in the lifetime and size of fluctuating clusters. Experiments exhibit similar behavior and, as vs is reduced, …


Black Hole Multiplicity At Particle Colliders (Do Black Holes Radiate Mainly On The Brane?), Marco Cavaglia Sep 2003

Black Hole Multiplicity At Particle Colliders (Do Black Holes Radiate Mainly On The Brane?), Marco Cavaglia

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

If gravity becomes strong at the TeV scale, we may have the chance to produce black holes at particle colliders. In this Letter we revisit some phenomenological signatures of black hole production in TeV-gravity theories. We show that the bulk-to-brane ratio of black hole energy loss during the Hawking evaporation phase depends crucially on the black hole greybody factors and on the particle degrees of freedom. Since the greybody factors have not yet been calculated in the literature, and the particle content at trans-Planckian energies is not known, it is premature to claim that the black hole emits mainly on …


Local Versus Nonlocal Order-Parameter Field Theories For Quantum Phase Transitions, Dietrich Belitz, Theodore R. Kirkpatrick, Thomas Vojta Apr 2002

Local Versus Nonlocal Order-Parameter Field Theories For Quantum Phase Transitions, Dietrich Belitz, Theodore R. Kirkpatrick, Thomas Vojta

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

General conditions are formulated that allow us to determine which quantum phase transitions in itinerant electron systems can be described by a local Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson (LGW) theory solely in terms of the order parameter. A crucial question is the degree to which the order parameter fluctuations couple to other soft modes. Three general classes of zero-wave-number order parameters, in the particle-hole spin-singlet and spin-triplet channels and in the particle-particle channel, respectively, are considered. It is shown that the particle-hole spin-singlet class does allow for a local LGW theory, while the other two classes do not. The implications of this result for …


Effect Of Rare Locally Ordered Regions On A Disordered Itinerant Quantum Antiferromagnet With Cubic Anisotropy, Rajesh S. Narayanan, Thomas Vojta Dec 2001

Effect Of Rare Locally Ordered Regions On A Disordered Itinerant Quantum Antiferromagnet With Cubic Anisotropy, Rajesh S. Narayanan, Thomas Vojta

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We study the quantum phase transition of an itinerant antiferromagnet with cubic anisotropy in the presence of quenched disorder, paying particular attention to the locally ordered spatial regions that form in the Griffiths region. We derive an effective action where these rare regions are described in terms of static annealed disorder. A one-loop renormalization-group analysis of the effective action shows that for order-parameter dimensions p<4, the rare regions destroy the conventional critical behavior, and the renormalized disorder flows to infinity. For order-parameter dimensions p>4, the critical behavior is not influenced by the rare regions; it is described by the conventional dirty cubic fixed point. We also discuss the influence of the rare regions on the fluctuation-driven first-order transition …


Quantum Phase Transition Of Itinerant Helimagnets, Thomas Vojta, Rastko Sknepnek Aug 2001

Quantum Phase Transition Of Itinerant Helimagnets, Thomas Vojta, Rastko Sknepnek

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We investigate the quantum phase transition of itinerant electrons from a paramagnet to a state which displays long-period helical structures due to a Dzyaloshinskii instability of the ferromagnetic state. In particular, we study how the self-generated effective long-range interaction recently identified in itinerant quantum ferromagnets is cut off by the helical ordering. We find that for a sufficiently strong Dzyaloshinskii instability the helimagnetic quantum phase transition is of second order with mean-field exponents. In contrast, for a weak Dzyaloshinskii instability the transition is analogous to that in itinerant quantum ferromagnets, i.e., it is of first order, as has been observed …


Structural Phase Transition And Tc Distribution In Hf-Doped Lamno3 Investigated Using Perturbed-Angular-Correlation Spectroscopy, William E. Evenson, David D. Allred, Gary L. Catchen Aug 1996

Structural Phase Transition And Tc Distribution In Hf-Doped Lamno3 Investigated Using Perturbed-Angular-Correlation Spectroscopy, William E. Evenson, David D. Allred, Gary L. Catchen

Faculty Publications

Using perturbed-angular-correlation (PAC) spectroscopy, via the Hf-->Ta probe, we have measured Mn-site electric-field gradients (EFG's) at Ta nuclei in ceramic samples of LaMnO3. Two crystallographic phases coexist over a temperature interval of ≈16 K near the orthorhombic-to-rhombohedral transition at ≈724 K, which shows a thermal hysteresis of ≈1.7±0.2 K. Concurrently, in the two phases, we determined the temperature dependence of the EFG parameters, Vzz, ƞ, and δ, and the ratio of the probe concentrations A1/A2. To explain the apparent coexistence of two phases in this weakly first-order transition, we present a model that assumes a spatial distribution of Tc …


Isotropy Group Description Of A Phase Transition In Nano3, W. Scott Stornetta, Dorian M. Hatch Jun 1984

Isotropy Group Description Of A Phase Transition In Nano3, W. Scott Stornetta, Dorian M. Hatch

Faculty Publications

Predictions of the possible post-transition symmetries of an R 3c zone center continuous phase transition are made using recent extensions of the Landau theory. The Landau theory is summarized and direct group theoretical methods are applied to the R 3c phase. General techniques for solving systems of nonlinear polynomial equations are reviewed and these techniques are applied to the minimization of the free energy F for the aforementioned possible symmetries. The results of the direct methods and the minimization procedures are shown to be compatible. It is shown that the transition to R 3c in NaNO3 is consistent with the …