ABSTRACT
We experimentally investigate the solidification of supercooled glycerol during aging that has recently been observed by Zondervan et al. We find that a slow cooling at 5 K/h prior to the aging is required for solidification to take place. Furthermore, we show that the time of onset depends strongly on the aging temperature which we varied between 220 and 240 K. The nature of the solid phase remains unclear. The experiments show that upon heating the solid glycerol melts at the crystal melting point. However, rheology experiments in the plate-plate geometry revealed the growth of a soft, slushlike phase that is distinct from a crystal grown by seeding at the same aging temperature. The slushlike glycerol grows from a nucleation point at almost the same speed as a seeded crystal quenched to the same temperature, but its shear modulus is almost 2 orders of magnitude lower than the crystal phase, which we measure independently. While solidification was reproducible in the Couette geometry, it was not in the plate-plate geometry.
ABSTRACT
The spot model has been developed by Bazant and co-workers to describe quasistatic granular flows. It assumes that granular flow is caused by the opposing flow of so-called spots of excess free volume, with spots moving along the slip lines of Mohr-Coulomb plasticity. The model is two-dimensional and has been successfully applied to a number of different geometries. In this paper we investigate whether the spot model in its simplest form can describe the wide shear zones observed in experiments and simulations of a Couette cell with split bottom.We give a general argument that is independent of the particular description of the stresses, but which shows that the present formulation of the spot model in which diffusion and drift terms are postulated to balance on length scales of order of the spot diameter, i.e. of order 3-5 grain diameters, is difficult to reconcile with the observed wide shear zones. We also discuss the implications for the spot model of co-axiality of the stress and strain rate tensors found in these wide shear flows, and point to possible extensions of the model that might allow one to account for the existence of wide shear zones.
ABSTRACT
Fluctuations of the interface between coexisting colloidal fluid phases have been measured with confocal microscopy. Due to a very low surface tension, the thermal motions of the interface are so slow that a record can be made of the positions of the interface. The theory of the interfacial height fluctuations is developed. For a host of correlation functions, the experimental data are compared with the theoretical expressions. The agreement between theory and experiment is remarkably good.
ABSTRACT
It has recently been proposed that fluctuating "pulled" fronts propagating into an unstable state should not be in the standard Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class for rough interface growth. We introduce an effective field equation for this class of problems, and show on the basis of it that noisy pulled fronts in d+1 bulk dimensions should be in the universality class of the ((d+1)+1)D KPZ equation rather than of the (d+1)D KPZ equation. Our scenario ties together a number of heretofore unexplained observations in the literature, and is supported by previous numerical results.
ABSTRACT
We report scanning tunneling microscopy observations, which imply that all atoms in a Cu(001) surface move frequently, even at room temperature. Using a low density of embedded indium "tracer" atoms, we visualize the diffusive motion of surface atoms. Surprisingly, the indium atoms seem to make concerted, long jumps. Responsible for this motion is an ultralow density of surface vacancies, diffusing rapidly within the surface. This interpretation is supported by a detailed analysis of the displacement distribution of the indium atoms, which reveals a shape characteristic for the vacancy mediated diffusion mechanism that we propose.
ABSTRACT
We investigate the asymptotic relaxation of so-called pulled fronts propagating into an unstable state, and generalize the universal algebraic velocity relaxation of uniformly translating fronts to fronts that generate periodic or even chaotic states. A surprising feature is that such fronts also exhibit a universal algebraic phase relaxation. For fronts that generate a periodic state, like those in the Swift-Hohenberg equation or in a Rayleigh-Benard experiment, this implies an algebraically slow relaxation of the pattern wavelength just behind the front, which should be experimentally testable.
ABSTRACT
We argue that while fluctuating fronts propagating into an unstable state should be in the standard Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class when they are pushed, they should not when they are pulled: The 1/t velocity relaxation of deterministic pulled fronts makes it unlikely that the KPZ equation is their proper effective long-wavelength low-frequency theory. Simulations in 2D confirm the proposed scenario, and yield exponents beta approximately 0.29+/-0.01, zeta approximately 0.40+/-0.02 for fluctuating pulled fronts, instead of the (1+1)D KPZ values beta = 1/3, zeta = 1/2. Our value of beta is consistent with an earlier result of Riordan et al., and with a recent conjecture that the exponents are the (2+1)D KPZ values.
ABSTRACT
We elucidate the melting process of highly magnetized solid 3He by observing the magnetization profile and the liquid-solid interface simultaneously. Clear enhancements of magnetization and magnetization gradients at the interface of both the solid and the liquid were observed during melting. These measurements provide a mesoscopic confirmation of the melting scenario of Castaing and Nozieres, and explain the long delay before the instability sets in: The magnetization gradient in the liquid leads to an initial suppression of the melting instability, in accordance with our extension of the stability analysis of Puech et al. This resolves the discrepancy between theory and experiment.
