arXiv subjects

Frederic van Wijland

Publications and source records attributed to Frederic van Wijland.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2018

Strong coupling in conserved surface roughening: A new universality class?

The Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation defines the main universality class for nonlinear growth and roughening of surfaces. But under certain conditions, a conserved KPZ equation (cKPZ) is thought to set the universality class instead. This has non-mean-field behavior only in spatial dimension $d<2$. We point out here that cKPZ is incomplete: it omits a symmetry-allowed nonlinear gradient term of the same order as the one retained. Adding this term, we find a parameter regime where the $1$-loop renormalization group flow diverges. This suggests a phase transition to a new growth phase, possibly ruled by a strong coupling fixed point and thus described by a new universality class, for any $d>1$. In this phase, numerical integration of the model in $d=2$ gives clear evidence of non mean-field behavior.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2018

Active mechanics reveal molecular-scale force kinetics in living oocytes

Active diffusion of intracellular components is emerging as an important process in cell biology. This process is mediated by complex assemblies of molecular motors and cytoskeletal filaments that drive force generation in the cytoplasm and facilitate enhanced motion. The kinetics of molecular motors have been precisely characterized in-vitro by single molecule approaches, however, their in-vivo behavior remains elusive. Here, we study the active diffusion of vesicles in mouse oocytes, where this process plays a key role in nuclear positioning during development, and combine an experimental and theoretical framework to extract molecular-scale force kinetics (force, power-stroke, and velocity) of the in-vivo active process. Assuming a single dominant process, we find that the nonequilibrium activity induces rapid kicks of duration $τ\sim$ 300 $μ$s resulting in an average force of $F \sim$ 0.4 pN on vesicles in in-vivo oocytes, remarkably similar to the kinetics of in-vitro myosin-V. Our results reveal that measuring in-vivo active fluctuations allows extraction of the molecular-scale activity in agreement with single-molecule studies and demonstrates a mesoscopic framework to access force kinetics.

physics.bio-ph↗

arXiv2017

Entropy production in field theories without time reversal symmetry: Quantifying the non-equilibrium character of active matter

Active matter systems operate far from equilibrium due to the continuous energy injection at the scale of constituent particles. At larger scales, described by coarse-grained models, the global entropy production rate S quantifies the probability ratio of forward and reversed dynamics and hence the importance of irreversibility at such scales: it vanishes whenever the coarse-grained dynamics of the active system reduces to that of an effective equilibrium model. We evaluate S for a class of scalar stochastic field theories describing the coarse-grained density of self-propelled particles without alignment interactions, capturing such key phenomena as motility-induced phase separation. We show how the entropy production can be decomposed locally (in real space) or spectrally (in Fourier space), allowing detailed examination of the spatial structure and correlations that underly departures from equilibrium. For phase-separated systems, the local entropy production is concentrated mainly on interfaces with a bulk contribution that tends to zero in the weak-noise limit. In homogeneous states, we find a generalized Harada-Sasa relation that directly expresses the entropy production in terms of the wavevector-dependent deviation from the fluctuation-dissipation relation between response functions and correlators. We discuss extensions to the case where the particle density is coupled to a momentum-conserving solvent, and to situations where the particle current, rather than the density, should be chosen as the dynamical field. We expect the new conceptual tools developed here to be broadly useful in the context of active matter, allowing one to distinguish when and where activity plays an essential role in the dynamics.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2010

Casimir effect in the nonequilibrium steady-state of a quantum spin chain

We present a fully microscopics-based calculation of the Casimir effect in a nonequilibrium system, namely an energy flux driven quantum XX chain. The force between the walls (transverse-field impurities) is calculated in a nonequilibrium steady state which is prepared by letting the system evolve from an initial state with the two halves of the chain prepared at equilibrium at different temperatures. The steady state emerging in the large-time limit is homogeneous but carries an energy flux. The Casimir force in this nonequilibrium state is calculated analytically in the limit when the transverse fields are small. We find that the the Casimir force range is reduced compared to the equilibrium case, and suggest that the reason for this is the reduction of fluctuations in the flux carrying steady state.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2007

Current distribution in systems with anomalous diffusion: renormalisation group approach

We investigate the asymptotic properties of the large deviation function of the integrated particle current in systems, in or out of thermal equilibrium, whose dynamics exhibits anomalous diffusion. The physical systems covered by our study include mutually repelling particles with a drift, a driven lattice gas displaying a continuous nonequilibrium phase transition, and particles diffusing in a anisotropic random advective field. It is exemplified how renormalisation group techniques allow for a systematic determination of power laws in the corresponding current large deviation functions. We show that the latter are governed by known universal scaling exponents, specifically, the anomalous dimension of the noise correlators.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2006

Stationary state of a heated granular gas: fate of the usual H-functional

We consider the characterization of the nonequilibrium stationary state of a randomly-driven granular gas in terms of an entropy-production based variational formulation. Enforcing spatial homogeneity, we first consider the temporal stability of the stationary state reached after a transient. In connection, two heuristic albeit physically motivated candidates for the non-equilibrium entropy production are put forward. It turns out that none of them displays an extremum for the stationary velocity distribution selected by the dynamics. Finally, the relevance of the relative Kullbach entropy is discussed.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2005

Dynamics of a tracer granular particle as a non-equilibrium Markov process

The dynamics of a tracer particle in a stationary driven granular gas is investigated. We show how to transform the linear Boltzmann equation describing the dynamics of the tracer into a master equation for a continuous Markov process. The transition rates depend upon the stationary velocity distribution of the gas. When the gas has a Gaussian velocity probability distribution function (pdf), the stationary velocity pdf of the tracer is Gaussian with a lower temperature and satisfies detailed balance for any value of the restitution coefficient $α$. As soon as the velocity pdf of the gas departs from the Gaussian form, detailed balance is violated. This non-equilibrium state can be characterized in terms of a Lebowitz-Spohn action functional $W(τ)$ defined over trajectories of time duration $τ$. We discuss the properties of this functional and of a similar functional $\bar{W}(τ)$ which differs from the first for a term which is non-extensive in time. On the one hand we show that in numerical experiments, i.e. at finite times $τ$, the two functionals have different fluctuations and $\bar{W}$ always satisfies an Evans-Searles-like symmetry. On the other hand we cannot observe the verification of the Lebowitz-Spohn-Gallavotti-Cohen (LS-GC) relation, which is expected for $W(τ)$ at very large times $τ$. We give an argument for the possible failure of the LS-GC relation in this situation. We also suggest practical recipes for measuring $W(τ)$ and $\bar{W}(τ)$ in experiments.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2005

Chaotic properties of systems with Markov dynamics

We present a general approach for computing the dynamic partition function of a continuous-time Markov process. The Ruelle topological pressure is identified with the large deviation function of a physical observable. We construct for the first time a corresponding finite Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy for these processes. Then, as an example, the latter is computed for a symmetric exclusion process. We further present the first exact calculation of the topological pressure for an N-body stochastic interacting system, namely an infinite-range Ising model endowed with spin-flip dynamics. Expressions for the Kolmogorov-Sinai and the topological entropies follow.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2004

Energy flux distribution in a two-temperature Ising model

The nonequilibrium steady state of an infinite-range Ising model is studied. The steady state is obtained by dividing the spins into two groups and attaching them to two heat baths generating spin flips at different temperatures. In the thermodynamic limit, the resulting dynamics can be solved exactly, and the probability flow in the phase space can be visualized. We can calculate the steady state fluctuations far from equilibrium and, in particular, we find the exact probability distribution of the energy current in both the high- and low-temperature phase.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2004

Pair Contact Process with Diffusion: Failure of Master Equation Field Theory

We demonstrate that the `microscopic' field theory representation, directly derived from the corresponding master equation, fails to adequately capture the continuous nonequilibrium phase transition of the Pair Contact Process with Diffusion (PCPD). The ensuing renormalization group (RG) flow equations do not allow for a stable fixed point in the parameter region that is accessible by the physical initial conditions. There exists a stable RG fixed point outside this regime, but the resulting scaling exponents, in conjunction with the predicted particle anticorrelations at the critical point, would be in contradiction with the positivity of the equal-time mean-square particle number fluctuations. We conclude that a more coarse-grained effective field theory approach is required to elucidate the critical properties of the PCPD.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2004

Large deviations in weakly interacting boundary driven lattice gases

One-dimensional, boundary-driven lattice gases with local interactions are studied in the weakly interacting limit. The density profiles and the correlation functions are calculated to first order in the interaction strength for zero-range and short-range processes differing only in the specifics of the detailed-balance dynamics. Furthermore, the effective free-energy (large-deviation function) and the integrated current distribution are also found to this order. From the former, we find that the boundary drive generates long-range correlations only for the short-range dynamics while the latter provides support to an additivity principle recently proposed by Bodineau and Derrida.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2004

Pair contact process with diffusion: field theory

This paper, which was concerned with a field-theoretic analysis of the PCPD by means of the renormalization group, has been withdrawn by the authors. We had found a nontrivial RG fixed point, but could not exclude the possibility that it was outside the basin attraction of the RG flow initial conditions. A benevolent, yet careful and critical reader, H.K. Janssen, kindly provided us with an argument showing that our fixed point actually led to unphysical consequences: Given the critical exponents we computed, the fluctuations of the total number of particles would be negative at large times close to the critical point. This renders our contribution inconsistent and thus invalid. Hence we have decided to withdraw our paper from the archive. A consistent analytical description of the PCPD unfortunately remains a challenge.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv1998

Global Persistence in Directed Percolation

We consider a directed percolation process at its critical point. The probability that the deviation of the global order parameter with respect to its average has not changed its sign between 0 and t decays with t as a power law. In space dimensions d<4 the global persistence exponent theta_p that characterizes this decay is theta_p=2 while for d<4 its value is increased to first order in epsilon = 4-d. Combining a method developed by Majumdar and Sire with renormalization group techniques we compute the correction to theta_p to first order in epsilon. The global persistence exponent is found to be a new and independent exponent. We finally compare our results with existing simulations.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗