arXiv subjects

Benjamin Schmidt

Publications and source records attributed to Benjamin Schmidt.

41 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2009

Dynamical regimes and hydrodynamic lift of viscous vesicles under shear

The dynamics of two-dimensional viscous vesicles in shear flow, with different fluid viscosities $η_{\rm in}$ and $η_{\rm out}$ inside and outside, respectively, is studied using mesoscale simulation techniques. Besides the well-known tank-treading and tumbling motions, an oscillatory swinging motion is observed in the simulations for large shear rate. The existence of this swinging motion requires the excitation of higher-order undulation modes (beyond elliptical deformations) in two dimensions. Keller-Skalak theory is extended to deformable two-dimensional vesicles, such that a dynamical phase diagram can be predicted for the reduced shear rate and the viscosity contrast $η_{\rm in}/η_{\rm out}$. The simulation results are found to be in good agreement with the theoretical predictions, when thermal fluctuations are incorporated in the theory. Moreover, the hydrodynamic lift force, acting on vesicles under shear close to a wall, is determined from simulations for various viscosity contrasts. For comparison, the lift force is calculated numerically in the absence of thermal fluctuations using the boundary-integral method for equal inside and outside viscosities. Both methods show that the dependence of the lift force on the distance $y_{\rm {cm}}$ of the vesicle center of mass from the wall is well described by an effective power law $y_{\rm {cm}}^{-2}$ for intermediate distances $0.8 R_{\rm p} \lesssim y_{\rm {cm}} \lesssim 3 R_{\rm p}$ with vesicle radius $R_{\rm p}$. The boundary-integral calculation indicates that the lift force decays asymptotically as $1/[y_{\rm {cm}}\ln(y_{\rm {cm}})]$ far from the wall.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2008

A characterization of round spheres in terms of blocking light

A closed Riemannian manifold is said to have cross blocking if whenever distinct points p and q are at distance less than the diameter, all light rays from p can be shaded away from q with at most two point shades. Similarly, a closed Riemannian manifold is said to have sphere blocking if for each point p, all the light rays from p are shaded away from p by a single point shade. We prove that Riemannian manifolds with cross and sphere blocking are isometric to round spheres.

math.GT↗

arXiv2008

The Three Gap Theorem and Riemannian Geometry

The classical Three Gap Theorem asserts that for a natural number n and a real number p, there are at most three distinct distances between consecutive elements in the subset of [0,1) consisting of the reductions modulo 1 of the first n multiples of p. Regarding it as a statement about rotations of the circle, we find results in a similar spirit pertaining to isometries of compact Riemannian manifolds and the distribution of points along their geodesics.

math.DG↗

arXiv2007

Maximal ball packings of symplectic-toric manifolds

Let M be a symplectic-toric manifold of dimension at least four. This paper investigates the so called symplectic ball packing problem in the toral equivariant setting. We show that the set of toric symplectic ball packings of M admits the structure of a convex polytope. Previous work of the first author shows that up to equivalence, only CP^1 x CP^1 and CP^2 admit density one packings when n=2 and only CP^n admits density one packings when n>2. In contrast, we show that for a fixed n>=2 and each r in (0, 1), there are uncountably many inequivalent 2n-dimensional symplectic-toric manifolds with a maximal toric packing of density r. This result follows from a general analysis of how the densities of maximal packings change while varying a given symplectic-toric manifold through a family of symplectic-toric manifolds that are equivariantly diffeomorphic but not equivariantly symplectomorphic.

math.SG↗

arXiv2005

Weakly hyperbolic actions of Kazhdan groups on tori

In this paper, we investigate the ergodic and rigidity properties of weakly hyperbolic group actions. Motivated by classical theorems describing Anosov diffeomorphisms, we obtain two main results: First, all C^2 volume preserving weakly hyperbolic actions on closed manifolds are ergodic. This result generalizes Anosov's classical theorem on ergodicity of Anosov diffeomorphisms to the wider class of weakly hyperbolic group actions. To state the second main result, suppose that A denotes a weakly hyperbolic action of a higher rank lattice (such as SL(n,Z) for n>2) by C^2 volume preserving diffeomorphisms on the torus. If A is covered by an action of the universal covering space, R^n, of the torus, then A induces a weakly hyperbolic representation on the first homology of the torus. This result may be viewed as an analogue of Manning's contribution to the Franks/Manning classification of Anosov diffeos. on tori. We draw conclusions related to Zimmer's program of classifying ergodic volume preserving actions of higher rank lattices. Both results rely on a new regularity result of Rauch and Talyor relating Sobolev classes of functions measured tangentially with respect to leaves of absolutely continuous foliations to global Sobolev classes of functions.

math.DG↗