arXiv subjects

J. A. Cuesta

Publications and source records attributed to J. A. Cuesta.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2010

Crossed-ratchet effects and domain wall geometrical pinning

The motion of a domain wall in a two dimensional medium is studied taking into account the internal elastic degrees of freedom of the wall and geometrical pinning produced both by holes and sample boundaries. This study is used to analyze the geometrical conditions needed for optimizing crossed ratchet effects in periodic rectangular arrays of asymmetric holes, recently observed experimentally in patterned ferromagnetic films. Geometrical calculations and numerical simulations have been used to obtain the anisotropic critical fields for depinning flat and kinked walls in rectangular arrays of triangles. The aim is to show with a generic elastic model for interfaces how to build a rectifier able to display crossed ratchet effects or effective potential landscapes for controlling the motion of interfaces or invasion fronts.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2009

Statistical mechanics of ecosystem assembly

We introduce a toy model of ecosystem assembly for which we are able to map out all assembly pathways generated by external invasions. The model allows to display the whole phase space in the form of an assembly graph whose nodes are communities of species and whose directed links are transitions between them induced by invasions. We characterize the process as a finite Markov chain and prove that it exhibits a unique set of recurrent states (the endstate of the process), which is therefore resistant to invasions. This also shows that the endstate is independent on the assembly history. The model shares all features with standard assembly models reported in the literature, with the advantage that all observables can be computed in an exact manner.

q-bio.PE↗

arXiv2007

The Shared Reward Dilemma

One of the most direct human mechanisms of promoting cooperation is rewarding it. We study the effect of sharing a reward among cooperators in the most stringent form of social dilemma, namely the Prisoner's Dilemma. Specifically, for a group of players that collect payoffs by playing a pairwise Prisoner's Dilemma game with their partners, we consider an external entity that distributes a fixed reward equally among all cooperators. Thus, individuals confront a new dilemma: on the one hand, they may be inclined to choose the shared reward despite the possibility of being exploited by defectors; on the other hand, if too many players do that, cooperators will obtain a poor reward and defectors will outperform them. By appropriately tuning the amount to be shared a vast variety of scenarios arises, including traditional ones in the study of cooperation as well as more complex situations where unexpected behavior can occur. We provide a complete classification of the equilibria of the $n$-player game as well as of its evolutionary dynamics.

q-bio.PE↗

arXiv2000

What do emulsification failure and Bose-Einstein condensation have in common?

Ideal bosons and classical ring polymers formed via self-assembly, are known to have the same partition function, and so analogous phase transitions. In ring polymers, the analogue of Bose-Einstein condensation occurs when a ring polymer of macroscopic size appears. We show that a transition of the same general form occurs within a whole class of systems with self-assembly, and illustrate it with the emulsification failure of a microemulsion phase of water, oil and surfactant. As with Bose-Einstein condensation, the transition occurs even in the absence of interactions.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv1998

Fundamental measure theory for mixtures of parallel hard cubes. II. Phase behavior of the one-component fluid and of the binary mixture

A previously developed fundamental measure fucntional [J. Chem. Phys. vol.107, 6379 (1997)] is used to study the phase behavior of a system of parallel hard cubes. The single-component fluid exhibits a continuous transition to a solid with an anomalously large density of vacancies. The binary mixture has a demixing transition for edge-length ratios below 0.1. Freezing in this mixture reveals that at least the phase rich in large cubes lies in the region where the uniform fluid is unstable, hence suggesting a fluid-solid phase separation. A method is develop to study very asymmetric binary mixtures by taking the limit of zero size ratio (scaling the density and fugacity of the solvent as appropriate) in the semi-grand ensemble where the chemical potential of the solvent is fixed. With this procedure the mixture is exactly mapped onto a one-component fluid of parallel adhesive hard cubes. At any density and solvent fugacity the large cubes are shown to collapse into a close-packed solid. Nevertheless the phase diagram contains a large metastability region with fluid and solid phases. Upon introduction of a slight polydispersity in the large cubes the system shows the typical phase diagram of a fluid with an isostructural solid-solid transition (with the exception of a continuous freezing). Consequences about the phase behavior of binary mixtures of hard core particles are then drawn.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv1994

Theoretical approach to two-dimensional traffic flow models

In this paper we present a theoretical analysis of a recently proposed two-dimensional Cellular Automata model for traffic flow in cities with the novel ingredient of turning capability. Numerical simulations of this model show that there is a transition between a freely moving phase with high velocity to a jammed state with low velocity. We study the dynamics of such a model starting with the microscopic evolution equation, which will serve as a basis for further analysis. It is shown that a kinetic approach, based on the Boltzmann assumption, is able to provide a reasonably good description of the jamming transition. We further introduce a space-time continuous phenomenological model leading to a couple of partial differential equations whose preliminary results agree rather well with the numerical simulations.

comp-gas↗

arXiv1994

Dynamics of Electric Field Domains and Oscillations of the Photocurrent in a Simple Superlattice Model

A discrete model is introduced to account for the time-periodic oscillations of the photocurrent in a superlattice observed by Kwok et al, in an undoped 40 period AlAs/GaAs superlattice. Basic ingredients are an effective negative differential resistance due to the sequential resonant tunneling of the photoexcited carriers through the potential barriers, and a rate equation for the holes that incorporates photogeneration and recombination. The photoexciting laser acts as a damping factor ending the oscillations when its power is large enough. The model explains: (i) the known oscillatory static I-V characteristic curve through the formation of a domain wall connecting high and low electric field domains, and (ii) the photocurrent and photoluminescence time-dependent oscillations after the domain wall is formed. In our model, they arise from the combined motion of the wall and the shift of the values of the electric field at the domains. Up to a certain value of the photoexcitation, the non-uniform field profile with two domains turns out to be metastable: after the photocurrent oscillations have ceased, the field profile slowly relaxes toward the uniform stationary solution (which is reached on a much longer time scale). Multiple stability of stationary states and hysteresis are also found. An interpretation of the oscillations in the photoluminescence spectrum is also given.

cond-mat↗