arXiv subjects

F. Cornu

Publications and source records attributed to F. Cornu.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

White paper on the relevance of the European Solar Telescope (EST) for the French heliophysics

The project of the European Solar Telescope aims to provide a state-of-the art infrastructure to study the Sun and its interactions with Earth and the heliosphere. This 4.2m aperture telescope will be equipped with multi conjugate adaptive optics, light-polarisation analyser, imaging spectrograph and integral field unit spectrographs. It will provide unprecedented observations of the solar photosphere and chromosphere and of the dynamical events and features that pertains to the low solar atmosphere. The EST project is presently in a phase of crystallisation, aiming at the creation of an European Research Infrastructure Consortium. While the French community has continuously been associated with the development of the EST project, some specific scientific aspects are more particularly relevant for the French astrophysics and heliophysics communities. The present review highlights the scientific research axes of high interest from the French community that shall strongly benefit from EST. The later will not only advance numerous topics of solar physics, as well as solar adaptive optics developments, but will also provide unrivaled datasets of high interest in the framework of space weather. This review also aims to highlight the space weather use that can be done with future EST observations, that will be particularly relevant for French heliophysicists.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2022

New duality relation for the Discrete Gaussian SOS model on a torus

We construct a new duality for two-dimensional Discrete Gaussian models. It is based on a known one-dimensional duality and on a mapping, implied by the Chinese remainder theorem, between the sites of an $N\times M$ torus and those of a ring of $NM$ sites. The duality holds for an arbitrary translation invariant interaction potential $v(\mathbf{r})$ between the height variables on the torus. It leads to pairs $(v,\widetilde{v})$ of mutually dual potentials and to a temperature inversion according to $\widetilde{\beta}=\pi^2/\beta$. When $v(\mathbf{r})$ is isotropic, duality renders an anisotropic $\widetilde{v}$. This is the case, in particular, for the potential that is dual to an isotropic nearest-neighbor potential. In the thermodynamic limit this dual potential is shown to decay with distance according to an inverse square law with a quadrupolar angular dependence. There is a single pair of self-dual potentials $v^\star=\widetilde{v^\star}$. At the self-dual temperature $\beta^\star=\widetilde{\beta^\star}=\pi$ the height-height correlation can be calculated explicitly; it is anisotropic and diverges logarithmically with distance.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2018

Density decay and growth of correlations in the Game of Life

We study the Game of Life as a statistical system on an $L\times L$ square lattice with periodic boundary conditions. Starting from a random initial configuration of density $\rho_{\rm in}=0.3$ we investigate the relaxation of the density as well as the growth with time of spatial correlations. The asymptotic density relaxation is exponential with a characteristic time $\tau_L$ whose system size dependence follows a power law $\tau_L\propto L^z$ with $z=1.66\pm 0.05$ before saturating at large system sizes to a constant $\tau_\infty$. The correlation growth is characterized by a time dependent correlation length $\xi_t$ that follows a power law $\xi_t\propto t^{1/z^\prime}$ with $z^\prime$ close to $z$ before saturating at large times to a constant $\xi_\infty$. We discuss the difficulty of determining the correlation length $\xi_\infty$ in the final "quiescent" state of the system. The decay time $t_{\rm q}$ towards the quiescent state is a random variable, we present simulational evidence as well as a heuristic argument indicating that for large $L$ its distribution peaks at a value $t_{\rm q}^*(L) \simeq 2\tau_\infty\log L$.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2017

Thermal contact through a two-temperature kinetic Ising chain

We consider a model for thermal contact through a diathermal interface between two macroscopic bodies at different temperatures: an Ising spin chain with nearest neighbor interactions is endowed with a Glauber dynamics with different temperatures and kinetic parameters on alternating sites. The inhomogeneity of the kinetic parameter is a novelty with respect to the model of Ref.[1] and we exhibit its influence upon the stationary non equilibrium values of the two-spin correlations at any distance. By mapping to the dynamics of spin domain walls and using free fermion techniques, we determine the scaled generating function for the cumulants of the exchanged heat amounts per unit of time in the long time limit.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2017

Glauber's Ising chain between two thermostats

We consider a one-dimensional Ising model each of whose $N$ spins is in contact with two thermostats of distinct temperatures $T_1$ and $T_2$. Under Glauber dynamics the stationary state happens to coincide with the equilibrium state at an effective intermediate temperature $T(T_1,T_2)$. The system nevertheless carries a nontrivial energy current between the thermostats. By means of the fermionization technique, for a chain initially in equilibrium at an arbitrary temperature $T_0$ we calculate the Fourier transform of the probability $P({\cal Q};\tau)$ for the time-integrated energy current ${\cal Q}$ during a finite time interval $\tau$. In the long time limit we determine the corresponding generating function for the cumulants per site and unit of time $\langle{\cal Q}^n\rangle_{\rm c}/(N\tau)$ and explicitly give those with $n=1,2,3,4.$ We exhibit various phenomena in specific regimes: kinetic mean-field effects when one thermostat flips any spin less often than the other one, as well as dissipation towards a thermostat at zero temperature. Moreover, when the system size $N$ goes to infinity while the effective temperature $T$ vanishes, the cumulants of ${\cal Q}$ per unit of time grow linearly with $N$ and are equal to those of a random walk process. In two adequate scaling regimes involving $T$ and $N$ we exhibit the dependence of the first correction upon the ratio of the spin-spin correlation length $\xi(T)$ and the size $N$.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2014

A parity breaking Ising chain Hamiltonian as a Brownian motor

We consider the translationally invariant but parity (left-right symmetry) breaking Ising chain Hamiltonian \begin{equation} {\cal H} = -U_2\sum_{k} s_{k}s_{k+1} - U_3\sum_{k} s_{k}s_{k+1}s_{k+3} \nonumber \end{equation} and let this system evolve by Kawasaki spin exchange dynamics. Monte Carlo simulations show that perturbations forcing this system off equilibrium make it act as a Brownian molecular motor which, in the lattice gas interpretation, transports particles along the chain. We determine the particle current under various different circumstances, in particular as a function of the ratio $U_3/U_2$ and of the conserved magnetization $M=\sum_k s_k$. The symmetry of the $U_3$ term in the Hamiltonian is discussed

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2014

Affinity and Fluctuations in a Mesoscopic Noria

We exhibit the invariance of cycle affinities in finite state Markov processes under various natural probabilistic constructions, for instance under conditioning and under a new combinatorial construction that we call ``drag and drop''. We show that cycle affinities have a natural probabilistic meaning related to first passage non-equilibrium fluctuation relations that we establish.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2009

Atom-wall dispersive forces: a microscopic approach

We present a study of atom-wall interactions in non-relativistic quantum electrodynamics by functional integral methods. The Feynman-Kac path integral representation is generalized to the case when the particle interacts with a radiation field, providing an additional effective potential that contains all the interactions induced by the field. We show how one can retrieve the standard van der Waals, Casimir-Polder and classical Lifshiftz forces in this formalism for an atom in its ground state. Moreover, when electrostatic interactions are screened in the medium, we find low temperature corrections that are not included in the Lifshitz theory of fluctuating forces and are opposite to them.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2008

Granular Rough Sphere in a Low-Density Thermal Bath

We study the stationary state of a rough granular sphere immersed in a thermal bath composed of point particles. When the center of mass of the sphere is fixed the stationary angular velocity distribution is shown to be Gaussian with an effective temperature lower than that of the bath. For a freely moving rough sphere coupled to the thermostat via inelastic collisions we find a condition under which the joint distribution of the translational and rotational velocities is a product of Gaussian distributions with the same effective temperature. In this rather unexpected case we derive a formula for the stationary energy flow from the thermostat to the sphere in accordance with Fourier law.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2006

Three-dimensional Lorentz model in a magnetic field : exact and Chapman-Enskog solutions

We derive the exact solution of the Boltzmann kinetic equation for the three-dimensional Lorentz model in the presence of a constant and uniform magnetic field. The velocity distribution of the electrons reduces exponentially fast to its spherically symmetric component. In the long time hydrodynamic limit there remains only the diffusion process governed by an anisotropic diffusion tensor. The systematic way of building the Chapman-Enskog solutions is described.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2004

Charge renormalization and other exact coupling corrections in the dipolar effective interaction in an electrolyte near a dielectric wall

The aim of the paper is to study the renormalizations of the charge and of the screening length that appear in the large-distance behavior of the effective pairwise interaction between two charges in a dilute electrolyte solution, both along a dielectric wall and in the bulk. The electrolyte is described by the primitive model in the framework of classical statistical mechanics and the electrostatic response of the wall is characterized by its dielectric constant.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2003

Screened cluster expansions for partially ionized gases

We consider a partially ionized gas at thermal equilibrium, in the Saha regime. The system is described in terms of a quantum plasma of nuclei and electrons. In this framework, the Coulomb interaction is the source of a large variety of phenomena occuring at different scales: recombination, screening, diffraction, etc. In this paper, we derive a cluster expansion adequate for a coherent treatment of those phenomena. The expansion is obtained by combining the path integral representation of the quantum gas with familiar Mayer diagrammatics. In this formalism, graphs have a clear physical interpretation: vertices are associated with recombined chemical species, while bonds describe their mutual interactions. The diagrammatical rules account exactly for all effects in the medium. Applications to thermodynamics, van der Waals forces and dielectric versus conductive behaviour will be presented in forthcoming papers.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗