arXiv subjects

Miguel A. López-Castaño

Publications and source records attributed to Miguel A. López-Castaño.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2022

Diffusive regimes in a two-dimensional chiral fluid

Diffusion is a fundamental aspect of transport processes in biological systems, and thus, in the development of life itself. And yet, the diffusive dynamics of active fluids with directed rotation, known as chiral fluids, has not been analyzed in detail so far. Here, we describe the diffusive regimes of a two-dimensional chiral fluid, composed in this case of a set of identical disk-shaped rotors. We found strong experimental evidence of odd diffusion. This odd diffusion emerges in the form of a two-dimensional tensor with an antisymmetric part. In particular, we show that chiral diffusion is complex, featuring transitions between super, quasi-normal, and sub diffusion, and very slowly aging. Moreover, we show that the diffusion tensor elements, including off-diagonal elements; i.e., odd diffusion coefficient, change sign according to flow vorticity. Therefore, the chiral fluid has a self regulated diffusion, controlled by its vorticity.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2022

Chirality transitions in a system of active flat spinners

We study in this work the 2D dynamics of an experimental system of disk-shaped rotors, fluidized by turbulent upflow. Contrary to previous knowledge, our experiments show the same particle chiral geometry can produce flows with different chiralities. In particular, we unveil a conspicuous complex chiral flow, which displays multiple persistent vortexes with either sign, located randomly in the system. This peculiar phase mediates a continuous transition, which takes place as the kinetic energy input increases, from a flow with positive chirality (one vortex rotating in the same direction as particles spin) to a flow with negative chirality (one vortex in opposite sense to particle spin). We find that these surprising transitions are determined by the specific state of the statistical correlations between particle spin and translational velocity. We discuss how these correlations are determined in turn by the combined action of a series of mechanisms (for instance, heat dissipation at the boundaries, particle activity, average kinetic energy...), several of which are unveiled here.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2020

Zero-gravity thermal convection in granular gases

Previous experimental and theoretical evidence has shown that convective flow may appear in granular fluids if subjected to a thermal gradient and gravity (Rayleigh-Bénard-type convection). In contrast to this, we present here evidence of gravity-free thermal convection in a granular gas, with no presence of external thermal gradients either. Convection is here maintained steady by internal gradients due to dissipation and thermal sources at the same temperature. The granular gas is composed by identical disks and is enclosed in a rectangular region. Our results are obtained by means of an event-driven algorithm for inelastic hard disks.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2019

Large Mpemba-like effect in a gas of inelastic rough hard spheres

We report the emergence of a giant Mpemba effect in the uniformly heated gas of inelastic rough hard spheres: The initially hotter sample may cool sooner than the colder one, even when the initial temperatures differ by more than one order of magnitude. In order to understand this behavior, it suffices to consider the simplest Maxwellian approximation for the velocity distribution in a kinetic approach. The largeness of the effect stems from the fact that the rotational and translational temperatures, which obey two coupled evolution equations, are comparable. Our theoretical predictions agree very well with molecular dynamics and direct simulation Monte Carlo data.

cond-mat.soft↗