Statistical physics, thermodynamics and nonlinear dynamics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Network robustness is usually assessed following topological criteria, but disregards the role played by non-topological information. Artime et al. propose a flexible percolation framework that overcomes this limitation and combines both dimensions, offering new ways to protect real systems.

    • Oriol Artime
    •  & Manlio De Domenico

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The famous Kramers turnover describes the extent of friction at which the transition rate of a small particle trapped in a bistable potential becomes a maximum. Militaru et al. present a version of this phenomenon pertaining to active colloids driven by non-conservative forces.

    • A. Militaru
    • , M. Innerbichler
    •  & C. Dellago

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Neuromorphic devices take inspiration from spiking dynamics of neurons in the brain. Here, the authors demonstrate synchronized spiking dynamics in 240 photonic artificial neurons, each of which is implemented with a pair of antisymmetrically coupled degenerate optical parametric oscillators.

    • Takahiro Inagaki
    • , Kensuke Inaba
    •  & Hiroki Takesue

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electric fields and currents can alter microstructures of materials in unexpected ways. Here the authors report how electrochemical reduction can cause a grain boundary disorder-to-order transition and show the electric field effects on microstructural stability and evolution.

    • Jiuyuan Nie
    • , Chongze Hu
    •  & Jian Luo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The so-called twist-bend and splay-bend nematic liquid crystal phases are important concepts for studying bent-core mesogens. Chiappini et al. use a theory/simulation approach to suggest that the transition proceed via a twist-splay-bend phase which may be obscured by density modulations.

    • Massimiliano Chiappini
    •  & Marjolein Dijkstra

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Designing reliable nanoscale quantum-heat engines achieving high efficiency, high power and high stability is of fundamental and practical interest. Here, the authors report the realization of such a quantum machine using individual neutral Cs atoms in an atomic Rb bath, in which quantized heat exchange via inelastic spin-exchange collisions is controlled at the level of single quanta.

    • Quentin Bouton
    • , Jens Nettersheim
    •  & Artur Widera

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Human perceptual and cognitive abilities are limited resources and consequently cheaply available information translates into hypercompetition for rewarding outcomes. Here the authors show, with empirical analysis and an ecological model, that actors-memes ecosystems evolve towards a narrow set of emergent, natural network patterns.

    • María J. Palazzi
    • , Albert Solé-Ribalta
    •  & Javier Borge-Holthoefer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Contact tracing for a timely isolation of potentially infected individuals can be provided manually or via digital applications. Mancastroppa et al. show that in the combination of both procedures the manual tracing is dominant and allows for better detection of infection super-spreaders.

    • Marco Mancastroppa
    • , Claudio Castellano
    •  & Raffaella Burioni

  • Article
    | Open Access

    For active particles with nanoscale dimensions the overwhelming rotational diffusivity usually masks their residual non-equilibrium character. Here Schmidt et al. show how to amplify it in a suitable experiment to let a nanosphere rotate spontaneously around the beam axis in an optical trap.

    • Falko Schmidt
    • , Hana Šípová-Jungová
    •  & Giovanni Volpe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The classic Leidenfrost phenomenon is familiar, yet its physics is rather complex. Graeber et al. observe the unexpected development of repeated hopping of a droplet trampolining on its own vapor cushion on a hot plate and show under which conditions this self-initiated motion occurs.

    • Gustav Graeber
    • , Kartik Regulagadda
    •  & Dimos Poulikakos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Converse symmetry breaking is a counterintuitive phenomenon in which the system must have an asymmetry to stabilize a symmetric state. Molnar et al. demonstrate this effect in real power-grid networks and show that synchronous operation can be improved by inhomogeneities across power generators.

    • Ferenc Molnar
    • , Takashi Nishikawa
    •  & Adilson E. Motter

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The process of thin sheet crumpling is characterized by high complexity due to an infinite number of possible configurations. Andrejevic et al. show that ordered behavior can emerge in crumpled sheets, and uncover the correspondence between crumpling and fragmentation processes.

    • Jovana Andrejevic
    • , Lisa M. Lee
    •  & Chris H. Rycroft

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Gibbs paradox stems from the entropy change upon mixing two gases. Here, by considering bosonic and fermionic statistics, the authors show that an observer unable to distinguish the particles’ spins assigns a greater entropy increase to the mixing process than is possible in classical physics.

    • Benjamin Yadin
    • , Benjamin Morris
    •  & Gerardo Adesso

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Theoretical aspects of automated learning from data involving deep neural networks have open questions. Here Giambagli et al. show that training the neural networks in the spectral domain of the network coupling matrices can reduce the amount of learning parameters and improve the pre-training process.

    • Lorenzo Giambagli
    • , Lorenzo Buffoni
    •  & Duccio Fanelli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Networks with higher order interactions, relevant to social groups, ecosystems and human brain, require new tools and instruments for their analysis. Gambuzza et al. propose an analytical approach which allows to find conditions for stable synchronization in many-body interaction networks.

    • L. V. Gambuzza
    • , F. Di Patti
    •  & S. Boccaletti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Infrastructure networks are characterized by fluctuations of flow demand between different points and temporal congestion or overload on flow pathways. Hamedmoghadam et al. identify congestion bottlenecks in networks relevant to communication, transportation, water supply, and power distribution.

    • Homayoun Hamedmoghadam
    • , Mahdi Jalili
    •  & Lewi Stone

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Transmission by pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic viral carriers makes intervention and containment of the COVID-19 extremely challenging. Here, the authors construct an epidemiological model that focuses on transmission around the symptom onset, exploring specific transmission control measures.

    • Liang Tian
    • , Xuefei Li
    •  & Lei-Han Tang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many mean-field theories are proposed for studying the non-equilibrium dynamics of complex systems, each based on specific assumptions about the system’s temporal evolution. Here, Aguilera et al. propose a unified framework for mean-field theories of asymmetric kinetic Ising systems to study non-equilibrium dynamics.

    • Miguel Aguilera
    • , S. Amin Moosavi
    •  & Hideaki Shimazaki

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is a renewed interest in Faraday waves patterns in the field of nonlinear metamaterials due to their tunable templating capacity. Kharbedia et al. show that free-standing water surfaces with ordered patterns can be generated and controlled by the Faraday waves with help of stiffening surfactants.

    • Mikheil Kharbedia
    • , Niccolò Caselli
    •  & Francisco Monroy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Structure-forming systems, such as chemical reaction networks, are usually described with the grand-canonical ensemble, but this may be inaccurate for small-sized systems. Here, the authors propose a canonical ensemble approach for closed structure-forming systems, showing its application to physical problems including the self-assembly of soft matter.

    • Jan Korbel
    • , Simon David Lindner
    •  & Stefan Thurner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nonlinear dissipation is frequently observed in nanomechanical resonators, but its microscopic origin remains unclear. Here, nonlinear damping is found to be enhanced in graphene nanodrums close to internal resonance conditions, providing insights on the mechanisms at the basis of this phenomenon.

    • Ata Keşkekler
    • , Oriel Shoshani
    •  & Farbod Alijani

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A model of a classical discrete time crystal satisfying the criteria of persistent subharmonic response robust against thermal noise and defects has been lacking. Here, the authors show that these criteria are satisfied in one-dimensional probabilistic cellular automata with long-range interactions and bistability.

    • Andrea Pizzi
    • , Andreas Nunnenkamp
    •  & Johannes Knolle

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is generally believed that most eigenstates of quantum chaotic models are ergodic. In this work, the authors disprove this by showing that all eigenstates of the Dicke model in the chaotic regime are scarred, and that ergodicity is an ensemble property, achievable only in the temporal average.

    • Saúl Pilatowsky-Cameo
    • , David Villaseñor
    •  & Jorge G. Hirsch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Non-equilibrium and collective behaviors such as phase transitions in optical systems can lead to interesting applications in photonics. Here the authors demonstrate spectral phase transition in a ubiquitous nonlinear driven-dissipative system, the optical parametric oscillator.

    • Arkadev Roy
    • , Saman Jahani
    •  & Alireza Marandi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Curved elastic shells have unique mechanical behavior and multiple stable configurations, but these properties fade when the shell thickness increases. Here the authors report a strategy to realize bistable doubly curved shells with arbitrary thickness, and how to optimize the dynamic response of one-dimensional connected arrays of such doubly-curved bistable shells.

    • Nikolaos Vasios
    • , Bolei Deng
    •  & Katia Bertoldi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Colloidal rod-like mesogens make the study of liquid crystal structures available to simple optical microscopy. Wittmann et al. study topological defects in smectic phases under annular confinement and reveal a remarkable, quantitative agreement with a theoretic density functional description.

    • René Wittmann
    • , Louis B. G. Cortes
    •  & Dirk G. A. L. Aarts

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The degree of irreversibility of a dynamical system is commonly characterized by the total rate of entropy production. Seara et al. introduce a measure that quantifies irreversibility from data in broad classes of spatiotemporal non-equilibrium systems.

    • Daniel S. Seara
    • , Benjamin B. Machta
    •  & Michael P. Murrell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While classical approaches rely on the study of individual ferroelectric domain wall movement on long time scales, the authors consider collective movements of domain walls during short time scales, characterized by discrete jumps, as indicators of avalanches on a broad range of scales.

    • Blai Casals
    • , Guillaume F. Nataf
    •  & Ekhard K. H. Salje

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Absent a drug or vaccine, containing epidemic outbreaks is achieved by means of mobility restrictions and lock-downs. Here, the authors propose an alternating quarantine strategy, in which half of the population remains under lockdown while the other half continues to be active, resulting in a dramatic reduction in transmission.

    • Dror Meidan
    • , Nava Schulmann
    •  & Baruch Barzel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Temporal networks in which interaction events are distributed heterogeneously in time are complex to model. Unicomb et al. propose an analytical framework for the analysis of cascading dynamics in such networks, relevant for spin interactions, epidemic spreading, and language dynamics.

    • Samuel Unicomb
    • , Gerardo Iñiguez
    •  & Márton Karsai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Influencer networks include a small set of highly-connected nodes and can reach synchrony only via strong node interaction. Tönjes et al. show that introducing an optimal amount of noise enhances synchronization of such networks, which may be relevant for neuroscience or opinion dynamics applications.

    • Ralf Tönjes
    • , Carlos E. Fiore
    •  & Tiago Pereira

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The emergent excitation dynamics of an ultracold gas of Rydberg atoms exhibits features analogous to epidemic spreading on networks. Wintermantel et al. propose a controllable experimental system for studying network dynamics at the interface of mathematical models and real-world complex systems.

    • T. M. Wintermantel
    • , M. Buchhold
    •  & S. Whitlock

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Current inequality and market consumption modelling appears to be subjective. Here the authors combined all three axes of poverty modelling - Engel-Krishnakumar’s microeconomics, Aoki-Chattopadhyay’s mathematical precept and found that multivariate construction is a key component of economic data analysis, implying all modes of income and expenditure need to be considered to arrive at a proper weighted prediction of poverty.

    • Amit K. Chattopadhyay
    • , T. Krishna Kumar
    •  & Iain Rice

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Power grid frequencies mirror the state of the grid. Here, Rydin Gorjão et al. analyse measurements of power grid frequencies across areas and continents and uncover scaling laws of their fluctuations and spatio-temporal dynamics, which could aid the design, operation and control of power systems.

    • Leonardo Rydin Gorjão
    • , Richard Jumar
    •  & Benjamin Schäfer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ferroelectric domain wall profiles can be modeled by phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau theory, with different candidate models and parameters. Here, the authors solve the problem of model selection by developing a Bayesian inference framework allowing for uncertainty quantification and apply it to atomically resolved images of walls. This analysis can also predict the level of microscope performance needed to detect specific physical phenomena.

    • Christopher T. Nelson
    • , Rama K. Vasudevan
    •  & Sergei V. Kalinin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Robustness is a prominent feature of most biological systems, but most of the current efforts have been focused on studying homogeneous molecular networks. Here the authors propose a comprehensive framework for understanding how the interactions between genes, proteins, and metabolites contribute to the determinants of robustness.

    • Xueming Liu
    • , Enrico Maiorino
    •  & Amitabh Sharma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Whether or not diversity begets stability in ecological networks could depend on the spatial dispersal dynamics of species. Here the authors use mathematical models based on Turing pattern formation to show that trophic interactions combined with dispersal can destabilize complex ecosystems.

    • Joseph W. Baron
    •  & Tobias Galla

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Whether a turbulent flow would inevitably develop singular behavior at the smallest length scales is an ongoing intriguing debate. Using large-scale numerical simulations, Buaria et al. find an unexpected non-linear mechanism which counteracts local vorticity growth instead of enabling it.

    • Dhawal Buaria
    • , Alain Pumir
    •  & Eberhard Bodenschatz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Supply networks with optimal structure do not contain loops but these can arise as a result of damages or fluctuations. Here Kaiser et al. uncover the mechanisms of loop formation, predict their location and draw analogies with loop formation in biological networks such as plants and animal vasculature.

    • Franz Kaiser
    • , Henrik Ronellenfitsch
    •  & Dirk Witthaut

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Topological phenomena appear in non-Hermitian systems but the fundamental principles of the edge modes remain less understood. Here, Sone et al. report robust gapless edge modes due to topological structure around an exceptional point rather than bulk-edge correspondence.

    • Kazuki Sone
    • , Yuto Ashida
    •  & Takahiro Sagawa

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Building regulatory networks often requires trade-offs between accuracy and speed. Here the authors show in a bistable network the transition from a slow decision making system to a rapid one dominated by small number fluctuations.

    • Ferdinand Greiss
    • , Shirley S. Daube
    •  & Roy Bar-Ziv

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Multiplayer games can be used as testbeds for the development of learning algorithms for artificial intelligence. Omidshafiei et al. show how to characterize and compare such games using a graph-based approach, generating new games that could potentially be interesting for training in a curriculum.

    • Shayegan Omidshafiei
    • , Karl Tuyls
    •  & Rémi Munos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In non-Hermitian systems, fundamental concepts like bandgaps and locality cannot be applied as in Hermitian systems. Here, the authors introduce a class of non-Hermitian critical scenarios where the eigenstates and energies jump discontinuously across a critical point, with anomalous scaling properties

    • Linhu Li
    • , Ching Hua Lee
    •  & Jiangbin Gong

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