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Atahualpa S. Kraemer

Publications and source records attributed to Atahualpa S. Kraemer.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

The scales of disorder in perfect quasicrystals

The classical dichotomy between crystalline order and amorphous disorder is increasingly challenged by novel states that lack conventional crystalline symmetries while retaining crystal-like properties. Quasicrystals occupy a distinctive position within this expanding framework by possessing long-range order without translational periodicity, thereby permitting arbitrary $N$-fold rotational symmetry. Paradoxically, far from their unique symmetry center, high-symmetry quasicrystals closely resemble disordered patterns, raising the question of how deterministic order can be detected. Here we show that increasing rotational symmetry progressively suppresses local statistical signatures of quasiperiodicity, while preserving its underlying exact long-range order. This order is thus concealed below an emergent crossover length that grows linearly with $N$. Therefore, as $N \rightarrow \infty$, the disorder-like regime expands without bound, defining a symmetry-controlled geometric critical point at which deterministic order and randomness become statistically indistinguishable over any finite observation window. For finite $N$, however, quasiperiodic order becomes detectable beyond this crossover, revealing a second emergent length scale that we identify as the size of a \textit{statistical unit cell} -- finite patches over which statistical properties recur despite the absence of conventional translational periodicity. In one dimension, the statistical-unit-cell size coincides with the crossover length, whereas in two dimensions it grows as $N^2$, remaining smaller than the size of typical approximants and establishing a hierarchy of emergent length scales. Together, the disorder-to-order crossover and statistical unit cells provide a quantitative framework connecting crystals, quasicrystals, and amorphous matter, showing how apparent disorder can emerge from purely deterministic geometry.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

Dynamic neighbors: a proposal of a tool to characterize phase transitions

For molecular dynamics simulations of hard particles, we define dynamic neighbors as the distinct particles that collide with a given reference one during a specific time interval. This definition allows us to determine the distribution of the number of dynamic neighbors, its average, and its standard deviation. We will show that regardless of the time window used to identify dynamic neighbors, their distribution is correlated with diffusion coefficients, structure, and configurational entropy. Thus, it is likely that the distribution of the number of dynamic neighbors may be employed as another tool to gain insights into the dynamic behavior of hard systems. We tested this approach on 2D and 3D systems consisting of monodisperse and binary mixtures of hard disks and spheres. Results show that implementing dynamic neighbors to define order parameters can sharpen the signals where transitions take place.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

Efficient algorithm for simulating particles in real quasiperiodic environments

We introduce an algorithm based on Generalized Dual Method (GDM) to efficiently study the dynamics of a particle in quasiperiodic environments without the need to use periodic approximations or to save the information of the vertices that make up the quasiperiodic lattice. We show that the computation time and the memory required to find the tile in which a particle is located as a function of the distance $R$ to the center of symmetry remains constant in our algorithm, while using the GDM directly both quantities go like $R^2$.This allows us to perform realistic simulations with low consumption of computational resources. The algorithm can be used to study any quasiperiodic lattice that can be produced by the cut-and-project method. Using this algorithm, we have calculated the free path length distribution in quasiperiodic Lorentz gases reproducing previous results and for systems with high symmetries at the Boltzmann-Grad limit. We have found for the Boltzmann-Grad limit, that the distribution of free paths depends on the rank $r$ of the quasiperiodic system and not on its symmetry. The distribution as a function of the free path length $l$ appears to be a combination of exponential decay and a power-law behavior. The latter seems to become important only for probabilities less than $(2^{r-2} r (r+1))^{-1}$, showing an exponential decaying free-path length distribution for $r \rightarrow \infty$, similar to what is observed in disordered systems.

nlin.CD↗

Magnetotransport in a perturbed periodic antidot superlattice

We study a 2-dimensional model for an antidot periodic superlattice with perturbed positions of the antidots. To do so we use a quasiperiodic LG model obtained from a 3-dimensional billiard model. Our results show that infinite drifting trajectories present in the periodic antidot models disappear, but if the perturbation is small enough, those trajectories remain for long times. The probability to visit the region of the phase space where electrons have ballistic behavior tends to $0$ as the length of the drifting trajectories tends to infinity, leading to separation of these regions in phase space. As a result, we infer that the particles follow Levy walks and the system has superdiffusive behavior for short times. The superdiffusive exponent is correlated to the length of time where the superdiffusive behavior is present.

nlin.CD↗

Horizons and free path distributions in quasiperiodic Lorentz gases

We study the structure of quasiperiodic Lorentz gases, i.e., particles bouncing elastically off fixed obstacles arranged in quasiperiodic lattices. By employing a construction to embed such structures into a higher dimensional periodic hyperlattice, we give a simple and efficient algorithm for numerical simulation of the dynamics of these systems. This same construction shows that quasiperiodic Lorentz gases generically exhibit a regime with infinite horizon, that is, empty channels through which the particles move without colliding, when the obstacles are small enough; in this case, the distribution of free paths is asymptotically a power law with exponent -3, as expected from infinite-horizon periodic Lorentz gases. For the critical radius at which these channels disappear, however, a new regime with locally-finite horizon arises, where this distribution has an unexpected exponent of -5, previously observed only in a Lorentz gas formed by superposing three incommensurable periodic lattices in the Boltzmann-Grad limit where the radius of the obstacles tends to zero.

cond-mat.soft↗

Efficient algorithms for general periodic Lorentz gases in two and three dimensions

We present efficient algorithms to calculate trajectories for periodic Lorentz gases consisting of square lattices of circular obstacles in two dimensions, and simple cubic lattices of spheres in three dimensions; these become increasingly efficient as the radius of the obstacles tends to 0, the so-called Boltzmann-Grad limit. The 2D algorithm applies continued fractions to obtain the exact disc with which a particle will collide at each step, instead of using periodic boundary conditions as in the classical algorithm. The 3D version incorporates the 2D algorithm by projecting to the three coordinate planes. As an application, we calculate distributions of free path lengths close to the Boltzmann-Grad limit for certain Lorentz gases. We also show how the algorithms may be applied to deal with general crystal lattices.

nlin.CD↗

Periodizing quasicrystals: Anomalous diffusion in quasiperiodic systems

We introduce a construction to embed a quasiperiodic lattice of obstacles into a single unit cell of a higher-dimensional space, with periodic boundary conditions. This construction transparently shows the existence of channels in these systems,in which particles may travel without colliding, up to a critical obstacle radius. It provides a simple and efficient algorithm for numerical simulation of dynamics in quasiperiodic structures, as well as giving a natural notion of uniform distribution (measure) and averages. As an application, we simulate diffusion in a two-dimensional quasicrystal, finding three different regimes, in particular atypical weak super-diffusion in the presence of channels, and sub-diffusion when obstacles overlap.

nlin.CD↗