Statistical physics, thermodynamics and nonlinear dynamics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Synthetic active particles with inter-particle propulsion have been served as a model system to study the collective animal behaviors. Here, Khadka et al. add complexity to the model by spatially controlling particle motions through a laser feedback loop in response to the collective dynamics of particles.

    • Utsab Khadka
    • , Viktor Holubec
    •  & Frank Cichos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    At low densities, it is understood that the physics of two-dimensional electron gases becomes dominated by interactions but the nature of the state that forms remains controversial. Here the authors present transport measurements that indicate the existence of a Wigner crystal in silicon MOSFETs.

    • Pedro Brussarski
    • , S. Li
    •  & M. P. Sarachik

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tools from statistical physics can be used to investigate a large variety of fields ranging from economics to biology. Here the authors first adapt density-functional theory to predict the distributions of crowds in new environments and then validate their approach using groups of fruit flies.

    • J. Felipe Méndez-Valderrama
    • , Yunus A. Kinkhabwala
    •  & T. A. Arias

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Digital traces of our lives have the potential to allow insights into collective behaviors. Here, the authors cluster consumers by their credit card purchase sequences and discover five distinct groups, within which individuals also share similar mobility and demographic attributes.

    • Riccardo Di Clemente
    • , Miguel Luengo-Oroz
    •  & Marta C. González

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Heat transport in ultrathin metal layers is important for potential applications in optical‐magnetic switching, but difficult to access experimentally. Here, the authors use ultrafast X‐ray diffraction to directly probe and explain unexpected time‐dependent transport behavior in Au–Ni nanolayers.

    • J. Pudell
    • , A. A. Maznev
    •  & M. Bargheer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the occurrence of sudden changes in plasma parameters is important for the operation of magnetically confined fusion devices. Here the authors use simulation to shed light on the formation of abrupt large-amplitude events and the associated redistribution of energetic ions in a tokamak.

    • Andreas Bierwage
    • , Kouji Shinohara
    •  & Masatoshi Yagi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It has been conjectured that gravity may emerge from an entropic force arising on a holographic screen due to its purportedly intrinsic thermodynamic properties. Here, the authors test this conjecture by demonstrating that this key assumption of entropic force is inconsistent with general relativity.

    • Zhi-Wei Wang
    •  & Samuel L. Braunstein

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnetic metamaterials can be designed to provide models of frustrated systems that allow theoretical predictions to be experimentally tested. Here the authors realise a 2D XY model with dipolar interactions and find behaviour consistent with predictions of a low-temperature ordered state.

    • Naëmi Leo
    • , Stefan Holenstein
    •  & Laura J. Heyderman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Suspensions appear in a wide range of industrial settings, and dispersing particles in a uniform manner throughout a fluid remains challenging for applications. Wang et al. obtain hyperuniform mixtures without fine tuning by harnessing self-organized criticality due to slow sedimentation and shear.

    • Jikai Wang
    • , J. M. Schwarz
    •  & Joseph D. Paulsen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Community detection allows one to decompose a network into its building blocks. While communities can be identified with a variety of methods, their relative importance can’t be easily derived. Here the authors introduce an algorithm to identify modules which are most promising for further analysis.

    • Marinka Zitnik
    • , Rok Sosič
    •  & Jure Leskovec

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Artificial neural networks are artificial intelligence computing methods which are inspired by biological neural networks. Here the authors propose a method to design neural networks as sparse scale-free networks, which leads to a reduction in computational time required for training and inference.

    • Decebal Constantin Mocanu
    • , Elena Mocanu
    •  & Antonio Liotta

  • Article
    | Open Access

    From infectious diseases to brain activity, complex systems can be approximated using autoregressive models. Here, the authors show that incomplete sampling can bias estimates of the stability of such systems, and introduce a novel, unbiased metric for use in such situations.

    • Jens Wilting
    •  & Viola Priesemann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Complex networks can be used to model brain networks. Here the authors identify the essential nodes in a model of a brain network and then validate these predictions by means of in vivo pharmacogenetic interventions. They find that the nucleus accumbens is a central region for brain integration.

    • Gino Del Ferraro
    • , Andrea Moreno
    •  & Hernán A. Makse

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How structure and function coevolve in developing brains is little understood. Here, the authors study a coupled model of network development and memory, and find that due to the feedback networks with some initial memory capacity evolve into heterogeneous structures with high memory performance.

    • Ana P. Millán
    • , J. J. Torres
    •  & J Marro

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The energy-temperature uncertainty relation bounds the precision of simultaneously estimating energy and temperature of a system in equilibrium. In this article, the authors provide a generalised version which is valid for both classical and quantum systems, and at arbitrary coupling to the environment.

    • H. J. D. Miller
    •  & J. Anders

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Turbulent fluids in nature, counter-intuitively, can exhibit large-scale order that persists for long times. Pandey et al. numerically characterize the formation of these superstructures in turbulent convection by separating the fast motions at small-scales from those that gradually vary at large scales.

    • Ambrish Pandey
    • , Janet D. Scheel
    •  & Jörg Schumacher

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conservation laws are a key ingredient in the non-equilibrium dynamics of quantum many-body systems. Here, the authors develop generalised quantum fluctuation relations in order to identify the presence of conserved quantities relevant for a generalised Gibbs ensemble.

    • J. Mur-Petit
    • , A. Relaño
    •  & D. Jaksch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Competing interactions in frustrated magnets give rise to complex emergent phenomena, which challenge a full microscopic understanding but invite comparison to other systems. Bovo et al. find an analogy to classical gases and identify special temperatures that reveal fine details of the microscopic Hamiltonian.

    • L. Bovo
    • , M. Twengström
    •  & P. Henelius

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Communication networks and power grids may be subject to cascading failures which can lead to outages. Here the authors propose to investigate cascades using dynamical transients of electrical power grids, thereby identifying possible vulnerabilities that might remain undetected with any static approach.

    • Benjamin Schäfer
    • , Dirk Witthaut
    •  & Vito Latora

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fresnoite has an incommensurate structure that can be described as a nonlinear soliton lattice. Manley et al. show that the additional phason degrees of freedom associated with the solitonic structure can travel faster than more conventional phonon excitations, enabling supersonic energy transport.

    • M. E. Manley
    • , P. J. Stonaha
    •  & J. D. Budai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electrocaloric materials can be electrically driven to pump heat and hold promise for use in efficient solid-state refrigeration. Here, the authors demonstrate an approach to recycle recoverable energy from electrocaloric cycles, offering a method to enhance performance in electrocaloric refrigeration systems.

    • E. Defay
    • , R. Faye
    •  & N. D. Mathur

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The entanglement in a quantum system between a small region and the surrounding environment contains details about the whole state. Nakagawa et al. find a formula for the entanglement entropy of a class of thermal-like states and show that it can be applied more broadly to identify equilibrating states.

    • Yuya O. Nakagawa
    • , Masataka Watanabe
    •  & Sho Sugiura

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Water between two parallel solid plates can form mono-, bi-, or more layers. Here, the authors investigate the behavior of water confined between graphene sheets and find that the phase separation to mono- and bi-layer creates 2D droplets by bending the sheets which form ripples.

    • Hiroaki Yoshida
    • , Vojtěch Kaiser
    •  & Lydéric Bocquet

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanical and thermodynamic properties of amorphous materials are governed by their disordered network at microscales, but the detail remains elusive. Yan shows that the vibrational entropy induces a floppy-rigid phase separation near the rigidity onset and thus favors heterogeneous structures.

    • Le Yan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The minimal amount of assumptions to justify the use of maximum-entropy ensembles is still debated. Here, the authors show that the transitions that a partially known system environment can undergo are the same allowed for the maximum entropy state which is compatible with the known information.

    • Paul Boes
    • , Henrik Wilming
    •  & Rodrigo Gallego

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The motion of microparticles suspended in liquids is assumed to be dominated by viscous forces. Here, Berner et al. challenge this consensus by observing underdamped particle oscillations in a viscoelastic fluid and attributing it to the non-equilibrium fluctuations of liquid excited by particles.

    • Johannes Berner
    • , Boris Müller
    •  & Clemens Bechinger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Active rotating particles were shown to undergo a phase separation through numerical simulations. Here the authors provide an experimental realization of this phenomenon by presenting an ensemble of 3D-printed robots that rotate in different directions and interact with each other.

    • Christian Scholz
    • , Michael Engel
    •  & Thorsten Pöschel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Granular gases—dilute systems composed of dissipatively colliding particles—exhibit anomalous dynamics and numerous surprising phenomena. Here, Brilliantov et al. show that the aggregation mechanism can induce increase of the gas temperature despite the fact that the total kinetic energy decreases.

    • Nikolai V. Brilliantov
    • , Arno Formella
    •  & Thorsten Pöschel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Single molecule approaches demonstrated that enzymatic catalysis is stochastic which could lead to deviations from classical predictions. Here authors rebuild the theory of enzymatic inhibition to show that stochastic fluctuations on the single enzyme level could make inhibitors act as activators.

    • Tal Robin
    • , Shlomi Reuveni
    •  & Michael Urbakh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ability to generate microscale patterns and control microswimmers may be useful for engineering smart materials. Here Arlt et al. use genetically modified bacteria with fast response to changes in light intensity to produce light-induced patterns.

    • Jochen Arlt
    • , Vincent A. Martinez
    •  & Wilson C. K. Poon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The cluster phase of active particles is one instance of the propensity of active matter to self-organize. Combining high-statistics experiments on Janus colloids and simple modeling, Ginot et al. provide a thorough characterization of cluster’s size and motion.

    • F. Ginot
    • , I. Theurkauff
    •  & C. Cottin-Bizonne

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reptation theory has been widely adopted to describe the dynamics of entangled polymer solution, whereby a polymer follows the curvilinear Brownian motion along a tube. Here, the authors challenge this theory by showing long-time dynamics of semi-flexible polymers modulated by topological constraints.

    • Philipp Lang
    •  & Erwin Frey

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The existence of interfaces, separating distinct relaxing regions, has been predicted in glass  theory, but a direct proof remains challenging due to the amorphous nature of glasses. Ganapathi et al. identify and measure the surface tension of these interfaces in bulk supercooled colloidal liquids.

    • Divya Ganapathi
    • , K. Hima Nagamanasa
    •  & Rajesh Ganapathy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The transport dynamics of messenger ribonucleoproteins in neurons is crucial to our neuronal functions, but the detail remains elusive. Song et al. show that they are transported along the dendrites in alternating run and rest phases with their own random sojourn times, following an aging Lévy walk.

    • Minho S. Song
    • , Hyungseok C. Moon
    •  & Hye Yoon Park

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Thermal camouflaging techniques typically use bulky structures and require a well-defined and unchanging background. Here, the authors propose a strategy for thermal camouflage using a structured thermal surface, independent of the background material for many practical situations.

    • Ying Li
    • , Xue Bai
    •  & Cheng-Wei Qiu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Knowledge of the thermodynamic potential is crucial to characterize the macroscopic state of soft porous crystals. Here, the authors present a generalized thermodynamic approach to construct the Helmholtz free energy and identify the conditions under which a material becomes flexible.

    • L. Vanduyfhuys
    • , S. M. J. Rogge
    •  & V. Van Speybroeck

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding global epidemics spread is crucial for preparedness and response. Here the authors introduce an analytical framework to study epidemic spread on air transport networks, and demonstrate its power to estimate key epidemic parameters by application to the recent influenza pandemic and Ebola outbreak.

    • Lin Wang
    •  & Joseph T. Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Evaluating maximum conversion efficiency from heat to work using non-thermal baths can lead to meaningless results, when based only on the reversibility requirement. Here, the authors solve this problem by identifying the fraction of exchanged energy that necessarily causes a change in entropy.

    • Wolfgang Niedenzu
    • , Victor Mukherjee
    •  & Gershon Kurizki

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Most time series techniques tend to ignore data uncertainties, which results in inaccurate conclusions. Here, Goswami et al. represent time series as a sequence of probability density functions, and reliably detect abrupt transitions by identifying communities in probabilistic recurrence networks.

    • Bedartha Goswami
    • , Niklas Boers
    •  & Jürgen Kurths

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Complex networks are a useful tool to investigate the structure of cities and their street networks. Here the authors investigate the shape of travel routes in 92 cities and define a metric called inness which reveals connections between common urban features in cities with similar inness profiles.

    • Minjin Lee
    • , Hugo Barbosa
    •  & Gourab Ghoshal

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