arXiv subjects

Kaushik Bhattacharya

Publications and source records attributed to Kaushik Bhattacharya.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Photovoltaic effect in multi-domain ferroelectric perovskite oxides

We propose a device model that elucidates the role of domain walls in the photovoltaic effect in multi-domain ferroelectric perovskites. The model accounts for the intricate interplay between ferroelectric polarization, space charges, photo-generation and electronic transport. When applied to bismuth ferrite, results show a significant electric potential step across both 71-degree and 109-degree domain walls, which in turn contributes to the photovoltaic (PV) effect. We also find a strong correlation between polarization and oxygen octahedra tilts, which indicates the nontrivial role of the latter in the PV effect. The domain wall-based PV effect is further shown to be additive in nature, allowing for the possibility of generating above-bandgap voltage

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2018

Static and sliding contact of rough surfaces: effect of asperity-scale properties and long-range elastic interactions

Friction in static and sliding contact of rough surfaces is important in numerous physical phenomena. We seek to understand macroscopically observed static and sliding contact behavior as the collective response of a large number of microscopic asperities. We develop an efficient numerical framework that can be used to investigate how the macroscopic response of multiple frictional contacts depends on long-range elastic interactions, different constitutive assumptions about the deforming contacts and their local shear resistance, and surface roughness. We approximate the contact between two rough surfaces as that between a regular array of discrete deformable elements attached to a elastic block and a rigid rough surface. The deformable elements are viscoelastic or elasto/viscoplastic with a range of relaxation times, and the elastic interaction between contacts is long-range. We find that the model reproduces main macroscopic features of evolution of contact and friction for a range of constitutive models of the elements, suggesting that macroscopic frictional response is robust with respect to the microscopic behavior. Viscoelasticity/viscoplasticity contributes to the increase of friction with contact time and leads to a subtle history dependence. Interestingly, long-range elastic interactions only change the results quantitatively compared to the meanfield response. We find that sustained increase in the static friction coefficient during long hold times suggests viscoelastic response of the underlying material with multiple relaxation time scales. We also find that the experimentally observed proportionality of the direct effect in velocity jump experiments to the logarithm of the velocity jump points to a complex material-dependent shear resistance at the microscale.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2018

Early universe cosmological solutions in exponential gravity

In this work we present some cosmologically relevant solutions using the spatially flat Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) spacetime in metric $f(R)$ gravity where the form of the gravitational Lagrangian is given by $\frac{1}αe^{αR}$. In the low curvature limit this theory reduces to ordinary Einstein-Hilbert Lagrangian together with a cosmological constant term. Precisely because of this cosmological constant term this theory of gravity is able to support nonsingular bouncing solutions in both matter and vacuum background. Since for this theory of gravity $f^{\prime}$ and $f^{\prime\prime}$ is always positive, this is free of both ghost instability and tachyonic instability. Moreover, because of the existence of the cosmological constant term, this gravity theory also admits a de-Sitter solution. Lastly we hint towards the possibility of a new type of cosmological solution that is possible only in higher derivative theories of gravity like this one.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2018

Optimizing Bone Scaffold Porosity Distributions

We consider a simple one-dimensional time-dependent model for bone regeneration in the presence of a bio-resorbable polymer scaffold. Within the framework of the model, we optimize the effective mechanical stiffness of the polymer scaffold together with the regenerated bone matrix. The result of the optimization procedure is a scaffold porosity distribution which maximizes the stiffness of the scaffold-bone system over the regeneration time, such that the propensity for mechanical failure is reduced.

q-bio.TO↗

arXiv2018

Causal horizons in a bouncing universe

As our understanding of the past in a bouncing universe is limited, it becomes difficult to propose a cosmological model which can give some understanding of the causal structure of the bouncing universe. In this article we address the issue related to the particle horizon problem in the bouncing universe models. It is shown that in many models the particle horizon does not exist, and consequently the horizon problem is trivially solved. In some cases a bouncing universe can have a particle horizon and we specify the conditions for its existence. In the absence of a particle horizon the Hubble surface specifies the causal structure of a bouncing universe. We specify the complex relationship between the Hubble surface and the particle horizon when the particle horizon exists. The article also address the issue related to the event horizon in a bouncing universe. A toy example of a bouncing universe is first presented where we specify the conditions which dictate the presence of a particle horizon. Next we specify the causal structures of three widely used bouncing models. The first case is related to quintom matter bounce model, the second one is loop quantum cosmology based bounce model and lastly $f(R)$ gravity induced bounce model. We present a brief discussion on the horizon problem in bouncing cosmologies. We point out that the causal structure of the various bounce models fit our general theoretical predictions.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2018

Patterning nonisometric origami in nematic elastomer sheets

Nematic elastomers dramatically change their shape in response to diverse stimuli including light and heat. In this paper, we provide a systematic framework for the design of complex three dimensional shapes through the actuation of heterogeneously patterned nematic elastomer sheets. These sheets are composed of \textit{nonisometric origami} building blocks which, when appropriately linked together, can actuate into a diverse array of three dimensional faceted shapes. We demonstrate both theoretically and experimentally that: 1) the nonisometric origami building blocks actuate in the predicted manner, 2) the integration of multiple building blocks leads to complex multi-stable, yet predictable, shapes, 3) we can bias the actuation experimentally to obtain a desired complex shape amongst the multi-stable shapes. We then show that this experimentally realized functionality enables a rich possible design landscape for actuation using nematic elastomers. We highlight this landscape through theoretical examples, which utilize large arrays of these building blocks to realize a desired three dimensional origami shape. In combination, these results amount to an engineering design principle, which we hope will provide a template for the application of nematic elastomers to emerging technologies.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2017

Proliferation of Twinning in HCP Metals: Application to Magnesium

Plastic deformation of metallic alloys usually takes place through slip, but occasionally involves twinning. In particular, twinning is important in hexagonal close packed materials where the easy slip systems are insufficient to accommodate arbitrary deformations. While deformation by slip mechanisms is reasonably well understood, less remains known about deformation by twinning. Indeed, the identification of relevant twinning modes remains an art. In this paper, we develop an universal framework combining fundamental kinematic definition of twins with large scale atomistic calculations to predict twinning modes of crystalline materials. We apply this framework to magnesium where there are two accepted twin modes -- tension and compression, but a number of anomalous observations. Surprisingly, our framework shows that there are a very large number of twinning modes that are important in the deformation process of magnesium consistent with the anomalous observations. Thus, in contrast to the traditional view where plastic deformation is kinematically partitioned between a few modes, our result argues that the physics of deformation in HCP materials is governed by an energetic and kinetic competition between numerous possibilities. Consequently, our findings suggest that the commonly used models of deformation physics need to be revisited in order to take into account a broader and richer variety of twin modes, and potentially points to new avenues of improving the mechanical properties.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2017

Self-gravitating fluid systems and galactic dark matter

We study gravitational collapse with anisotropic pressures, whose end stage can mimic space-times that are seeded by galactic dark matter. To this end, we identify a class of space-times (with conical defects) that can arise out of such a collapse process, and admit stable circular orbits at all radial distances. These have a naked singularity at the origin. An example of such a space-time is seen to be the Bertrand space-time discovered by Perlick, that admits closed, stable orbits at all radii. Using relativistic two- fluid models, we show that our galactic space-times might indicate exotic matter, i.e one of the component fluids may have negative pressure for a certain asymptotic fall off of the associated mass density, in the Newtonian limit. We complement this analysis by studying some simple examples of Newtonian two-fluid systems, and compare this with the Newtonian limit of the relativistic systems considered.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2017

Actuation of thin nematic elastomer sheets with controlled heterogeneity

Nematic elastomers and glasses deform spontaneously when subjected to temperature changes. This property can be exploited in the design of heterogeneously patterned thin sheets that deform into a non-trivial shape when heated or cooled. In this paper, we start from a variational formulation for the entropic elastic energy of liquid crystal elastomers and we derive an effective two-dimensional metric constraint, which links the deformation and the heterogeneous director field. Our main results show that satisfying the metric constraint is both necessary and sufficient for the deformation to be an approximate minimizer of the energy. We include several examples which show that the class of deformations satisfying the metric constraint is quite rich.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2017

Non-minimally coupled dark fluid in Schwarzschild spacetime

If one assumes a particular form of non-minimal coupling, called the conformal coupling, of a perfect fluid with gravity in the fluid-gravity Lagrangian then one gets modified Einstein field equation. In the modified Einstein equation, the effect of the non-minimal coupling does not vanish if one works with spacetimes for which the Ricci scalar vanishes. In the present work we use the Schwarzschild metric in the modified Einstein equation, in presence of non-minimal coupling with a fluid, and find out the energy-density and pressure of the fluid. In the present case the perfect fluid is part of the solution of the modified Einstein equation. We also solve the modified Einstein equation, using the flat spacetime metric and show that in presence of non-minimal coupling one can accommodate a perfect fluid of uniform energy-density and pressure in the flat spacetime. In both the cases the fluid pressure turns out to be negative. Except these non-trivial solutions it must be noted that the vacuum solutions also remain as trivial valid solutions of the modified Einstein equation in presence of non-minimal coupling.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2017

Microstructure-enabled control of wrinkling in nematic elastomer sheets

Nematic elastomers are rubbery solids which have liquid crystals incorporated into their polymer chains. These materials display many unusual mechanical properties, one such being the ability to form fine-scale microstructure. In this work, we explore the response of taut and appreciably stressed sheets made of nematic elastomer. Such sheets feature two potential instabilities -- the formation of fine-scale material microstructure and the formation of fine-scale wrinkles. We develop a theoretical framework to study these sheets that accounts for both instabilities, and we implement this framework numerically. Specifically, we show that these instabilities occur for distinct mesoscale stretches, and observe that microstructure is finer than wrinkles for physically relevant parameters. Therefore, we relax (i.e., implicitly but rigorously account for) the microstructure while we regularize (i.e., compute the details explicitly) the wrinkles. Using both analytical and numerical studies, we show that nematic elastomer sheets can suppress wrinkling by modifying the expected state of stress through the formation of microstructure.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2017

Optimal design of a model energy conversion device

Fuel cells, batteries, thermochemical and other energy conversion devices involve the transport of a number of (electro-)chemical species through distinct materials so that they can meet and react at specified multi-material interfaces. Therefore, morphology or arrangement of these different materials can be critical in the performance of an energy conversion device. In this paper, we study a model problem motivated by a solar-driven thermochemical conversion device that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. We formulate the problem as a system of coupled multi-material reaction-diffusion equations where each species diffuses selectively through a given material and where the reaction occurs at multi-material interfaces. We express the problem of optimal design of the material arrangement as a saddle point problem and obtain an effective functional which shows that regions with very fine phase mixtures of the material arise naturally. To explore this further, we introduce a phase-field formulation of the optimal design problem, and numerically study selected examples.

math.AP↗

arXiv2016

Spectrum-splitting approach for Fermi-operator expansion in all-electron Kohn-Sham DFT calculations

We present a spectrum-splitting approach to conduct all-electron Kohn-Sham density functional theory (DFT) calculations by employing Fermi-operator expansion of the Kohn-Sham Hamiltonian. The proposed approach splits the subspace containing the occupied eigenspace into a core-subspace, spanned by the core eigenfunctions, and its complement, the valence-subspace, and thereby enables an efficient computation of the Fermi-operator expansion by reducing the expansion to the valence-subspace projected Kohn-Sham Hamiltonian. The key ideas used in our approach are: (i) employ Chebyshev filtering to compute a subspace containing the occupied states followed by a localization procedure to generate non-orthogonal localized functions spanning the Chebyshev-filtered subspace; (ii) compute the Kohn-Sham Hamiltonian projected onto the valence-subspace; (iii) employ Fermi-operator expansion in terms of the valence-subspace projected Hamiltonian to compute the density matrix, electron-density and band energy. We demonstrate the accuracy and performance of the method on benchmark materials systems involving silicon nano-clusters up to 1330 electrons, a single gold atom and a six-atom gold nano-cluster. The benchmark studies on silicon nano-clusters revealed a staggering five-fold reduction in the Fermi-operator expansion polynomial degree by using the spectrum-splitting approach for accuracies in the ground-state energies of $\sim 10^{-4} Ha/atom$ with respect to reference calculations. Further, numerical investigations on gold suggest that spectrum splitting is indispensable to achieve meaningful accuracies, while employing Fermi-operator expansion.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2016

Programming complex shapes in thin nematic elastomer and glass sheets

Nematic elastomers and glasses are solids that display spontaneous distortion under external stimuli. Recent advances in the synthesis of sheets with controlled heterogeneities have enabled their actuation into non-trivial shapes with unprecedented energy density. Thus, these have emerged as powerful candidates for soft actuators. To further this potential, we introduce the key metric constraint which governs shape changing actuation in these sheets. We then highlight the richness of shapes amenable to this constraint through two broad classes of examples which we term nonisometric origami and lifted surfaces. Finally, we comment on the derivation of the metric constraint, which arises from energy minimization in the interplay of stretching, bending and heterogeneity in these sheets.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2016

A threshold-force model for adhesion and mode I fracture

We study the relation between a threshold-force based model at the microscopic scale and mode I fracture at the macroscopic scale in a system of discrete interacting springs. Specifically, we idealize the contact between two surfaces as that between a rigid surface and a collection of springs with long-range interaction and a constant tensile threshold force. We show that a particular scaling similar to that of crack-tip stress in Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics leads to a macroscopic limit behavior. The model also reproduces the scaling behaviors of the JKR model of adhesive contact. We determine how the threshold force depends on the fracture energy and elastic properties of the material. The model can be used to study rough-surface adhesion.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2016

Intricacies of Cosmological bounce in polynomial metric $f(R)$ gravity for flat FLRW spacetime

In this paper we present the techniques for computing cosmological bounces in polynomial $f(R)$ theories, whose order is more than two, for spatially flat FLRW spacetime. In these cases the conformally connected Einstein frame shows up multiple scalar potentials predicting various possibilities of cosmological evolution in the Jordan frame where the $f(R)$ theory lives. We present a reasonable way in which one can associate the various possible potentials in the Einstein frame, for cubic $f(R)$ gravity, to the cosmological development in the Jordan frame. The issue concerning the energy conditions in $f(R)$ theories is presented. We also point out the very important relationships between the conformal transformations connecting the Jordan frame and the Einstein frame and the various instabilities of $f(R)$ theory. All the calculations are done for cubic $f(R)$ gravity but we hope the results are sufficiently general for higher order polynomial gravity.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2015

An Effective Hamiltonian Approach to Quantum Random Walk

In this article we present an effective Hamiltonian approach for Discrete Time Quantum Random Walk. A form of the Hamiltonian for one dimensional quantum walk has been prescribed, utilizing the fact that Hamiltonians are the generators of time translations. Then an attempt has been made to generalize the techniques to higher dimensions. We find that the Hamiltonian can be written as the sum of a Weyl Hamiltonian and a Dirac comb potential. The time evolution operator obtained from this prescribed Hamiltonian is in complete agreement with that of the standard approach. But in higher dimension we find that the time evolution operator is additive, instead of being multiplicative \cite{Chandrasekhar:2013SREP08229}. We showed that in case of two-step walk, effectively the time evolution operator can have multiplicative form. In case of a square lattice, quantum walk has been studied computationally for different coins and the results for both the additive and the multiplicative approaches have been compared. Using the Graphene Hamiltonian the walk has been studied on a Graphene lattice and we conclude the preference of additive approach over the multiplicative one.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Galactic space-times in modified theories of gravity

We study Bertrand space-times (BSTs), which have been proposed as viable models of space-times seeded by galactic dark matter, in modified theories of gravity. We first critically examine the issue of galactic rotation curves in General Relativity, and establish the usefulness of BSTs to fit experimental data in this context. We then study BSTs in metric $f(R)$ gravity and in Brans-Dicke theories. For the former, the nature of the Newtonian potential is established, and we also compute the effective equation of state and show that it can provide good fits to some recent experimental results. For the latter, we calculate the Brans-Dicke scalar analytically in some limits and numerically in general, and find interesting constraints on the parameters of the theory. Our results provide evidence for the physical nature of Bertrand space-times in modified theories of gravity.

gr-qc↗