Statistical physics, thermodynamics and nonlinear dynamics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article |

    A thermal diode is the heat transfer analogue of an electrical diode: it favours the flow of energy carriers such as photons, phonons or electrons in one direction. Here, the authors demonstrate a photon thermal diode that uses pyramidal reflectors to asymmetrically scatter the photons.

    • Zhen Chen
    • , Carlaton Wong
    •  & Chris Dames

  • Article |

    Researchers refer to the approximate invariance in the structure and dynamics of simple liquids among different pair models as quasi-universality, while little is known about its origin. Here, Becher et al.show that the pair potential as a sum of exponential terms fulfils the quasuniversality.

    • Andreas K. Bacher
    • , Thomas B. Schrøder
    •  & Jeppe C. Dyre

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Network controllability has numerous applications in natural and technological systems. Here, Gao et al.develop a theoretical approach and a greedy algorithm to study target control—the ability to efficiently control a preselected subset of nodes—in complex networks.

    • Jianxi Gao
    • , Yang-Yu Liu
    •  & Albert-László Barabási

  • Article |

    Analogous to photonic crystals, phononic crystals can be used to engineer the acoustic properties of a system, however, creating nonlinear phononic crystals or nonlinear acoustic metamaterial is challenging. Here, Midtvedt et al.propose periodically pinned, atomically thin membranes as a nonlinear phononics platform.

    • Daniel Midtvedt
    • , Andreas Isacsson
    •  & Alexander Croy

  • Article |

    Random walks are standard tools for modelling dynamics in networks but usually neglect the possibility that the next step may depend on the previous ones. Rosvall et al. study the paths taken in various systems and show that memory effects play an important role and can uncover informative organization.

    • Martin Rosvall
    • , Alcides V. Esquivel
    •  & Renaud Lambiotte

  • Article |

    Traditionally, thermodynamics deals with the study of macroscopic systems comprised of a large number of particles. Skrzypczyk et al. present a framework—including a thermal bath and work-storage device—to extract the optimal amount of work from individual quantum systems.

    • Paul Skrzypczyk
    • , Anthony J. Short
    •  & Sandu Popescu

  • Article |

    The Josephson effect produces a supercurrent between two superconductors separated by an insulator, but it also leads to more exotic effects like electric quantum diffraction. Here, the authors show the appearance of Fraunhofer diffraction for thermal currents in a thermally biased Josephson junction.

    • Maria José Martínez-Pérez
    •  & Francesco Giazotto

  • Article |

    Water shows various anomalies, but an understanding of their microscopic origin is still missing. Russo and Tanaka introduce a new structural order parameter in simulations and identify locally favoured structures whose formation is responsible for the anomalies and supercooled water's stability against ice crystallization.

    • John Russo
    •  & Hajime Tanaka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In bulk, the spin ice Dy2Ti2O7 has posed an enigma because – due to its slow dynamics – it is unclear whether and how the material will reach a zero entropy state at zero temperature. Here, the authors show that in thin films of Dy2Ti2O7a zero entropy state is induced at 0.4 K, plausibly by lattice strain.

    • L. Bovo
    • , X. Moya
    •  & S.T. Bramwell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The point at which a magnetic field kills superconductivity in the cuprates has been difficult to measure. Grissonnanche et al. use thermal conductivity measurements to reliably determine this field and find that it drops suddenly below some critical doping, suggesting the onset of a new competing phase.

    • G. Grissonnanche
    • , O. Cyr-Choinière
    •  & Louis Taillefer

  • Article |

    Morphotropic phase boundaries, which separate two competing phases of different chemical composition, are the crucial ingredient for lead-based piezoelectrics. Here, the authors show that similar enhanced properties and analogous thermotropic phase boundaries can occur in simple, lead-free ferroelectrics.

    • Tom T.A. Lummen
    • , Yijia Gu
    •  & Venkatraman Gopalan

  • Article |

    Co-operativity is an effect where initial reaction events influence later events. Here, White et al.find evidence for co-operativity in the cation exchange process of nanocrystals, as cadmium selenide transforms into the copper selenide phase.

    • Sarah L. White
    • , Jeremy G. Smith
    •  & Prashant K. Jain

  • Article |

    Micro- and nano-scale oscillators are finding usage in novel sensors, but their performance is limited by their sensitivity to external perturbations. Here, the authors report an optomechanical technique to stabilize a nanomechanical beam to its thermodynamic limit.

    • Emanuel Gavartin
    • , Pierre Verlot
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Although it has been possible to calculate the conditions for exerting complete control over a directed complex network, for undirected and weighted networks this calculation is inexact. Yuan et al. develop a general framework for determining the controllability of any complex network.

    • Zhengzhong Yuan
    • , Chen Zhao
    •  & Ying-Cheng Lai

  • Article |

    A K-core of a complex network is a cluster of nodes that are connected to at least K other nodes of the cluster. Zhao et al. show that the influence of nodes outside a percolating K-core of protected nodes determines the size of the core and may cause an abrupt breakdown of the core.

    • Jin-Hua Zhao
    • , Hai-Jun Zhou
    •  & Yang-Yu Liu

  • Article |

    A physical description of supercritical fluids remains challenging because common approximations for solids and gases do not apply to liquids. Bolmatov et al. identify a liquid/gas dynamic crossover of specific heat above the critical point, and formulate a theory to shed light on its nature.

    • Dima Bolmatov
    • , V. V. Brazhkin
    •  & K. Trachenko

  • Article |

    Crackling noise is commonly observed in various physical systems. Schröderet al.demonstrate that crackling noise can be attributed to the concept of fractional percolation, which is found to be applicable to the known Barkhausen effect in ferromagnets.

    • Malte Schröder
    • , S. H. Ebrahimnazhad Rahbari
    •  & Jan Nagler

  • Article |

    The nature of liquid–liquid phase transitions remains inconclusive, because direct experimental evidence is limited by crystallization. Wei et al.observe it in a bulk metallic glass former, which is characterized by heat capacity maxima and sudden changes in both viscosity and local structures.

    • Shuai Wei
    • , Fan Yang
    •  & Ralf Busch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The melting temperature of hydrogen drops at high pressures, which suggests the possible emergence of a low-temperature liquid state of metallic hydrogen. Chen et al.confirm the existence of this phase in simulations and show how the quantum motion of the protons has a critical role in its stabilization.

    • Ji Chen
    • , Xin-Zheng Li
    •  & Enge Wang

  • Article |

    Thermodynamics and information theory are closely related but the fundamental limitations of this relation are difficult to determine. Combining concepts from one-shot information theory, probability theory and statistical mechanics, the author quantifies extractable work in a non-equilibrium system.

    • Johan Åberg

  • Article |

    The usual laws of thermodynamics that are valid for macroscopic systems do not necessarily apply to the nanoscale, where quantum effects become important. Here, the authors develop a theoretical framework based on quantum information theory to properly treat thermodynamics at the nanoscale.

    • Michał Horodecki
    •  & Jonathan Oppenheim

  • Article |

    The control of a complex network can be achieved by different combinations of relatively few driver nodes. Tao Jia and colleagues show that this can lead to two distinct control modes—centralized or distributed—that determine the number of nodes that can act as driver node.

    • Tao Jia
    • , Yang-Yu Liu
    •  & Albert-László Barabási

  • Article |

    The spin Seebeck effect, which refers to a spin current induced by a temperature gradient, is experimentally well established but a comprehensive theoretical framework is still missing. Here the authors succeed in explaining the non-locality and in predicting a non-magnon origin of the effect.

    • Konstantin S. Tikhonov
    • , Jairo Sinova
    •  & Alexander M. Finkel’stein

  • Article |

    Understanding heat flow in two-dimensional nanomaterials has wide-ranging implications. Here, the authors show that the thermal conductance of quarter-micron graphene samples is quasi-ballistic, but patterning the graphene into nanoribbons leads to diffusive heat flow strongly limited by edge scattering.

    • Myung-Ho Bae
    • , Zuanyi Li
    •  & Eric Pop

  • Article |

    The coil-globule transition undergone by polymers in solution delineates a transition from expanded coils to collapsed globules, depending on the polarity of the solvent. This study examines the influence of vibrational entropy on the transition, and finds it can induce a crossover from a second-order to a first-order transition.

    • Carlo Maffi
    • , Marco Baiesi
    •  & Paolo De Los Rios

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The iron pnictides are a class of superconductors that have received widespread interest in recent years. By doping the prototypical material LaFeAsO with hydrogen, this study reveals the existence of a second superconducting dome at higher doping ranges, which arises due to orbital fluctuations.

    • Soshi Iimura
    • , Satoru Matsuishi
    •  & Hideo Hosono

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