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Remembrances of Michael E. Fisher
David R. Nelson
This contribution will be published in '50 years of the renormalization group', dedicated to the memory of Michael E. Fisher, edited by Amnon Aharony, Ora Entin-Wohlman, David Huse…
Thermalized buckling of isotropically compressed thin sheets
Suraj Shankar, David R. Nelson
The buckling of thin elastic sheets is a classic mechanical instability that occurs over a wide range of scales. In the extreme limit of atomically thin membranes like graphene, th…
Thermal buckling and symmetry breaking in thin ribbons under compression
Paul Z. Hanakata, Sourav S. Bhabesh, Mark J. Bowick +2
Understanding thin sheets, ranging from the macro to the nanoscale, can allow control of mechanical properties such as deformability. Out-of-plane buckling due to in-plane compress…
Statistical Mechanics of Dislocation Pileups in Two Dimensions
Grace H. Zhang, David R. Nelson
Dislocation pileups directly impact the material properties of crystalline solids through the arrangement and collective motion of interacting dislocations. We study the statistica…
Statistical Mechanics of Low Angle Grain Boundaries in Two Dimensions
Grace H. Zhang, David R. Nelson
We explore order in low angle grain boundaries (LAGBs) embedded in a two-dimensional crystal at thermal equilibrium. Symmetric LAGBs subject to a periodic Peierls potential undergo…
Radial Domany-Kinzel Models with Mutation and Selection
Maxim O. Lavrentovich, Kirill S. Korolev, David R. Nelson
We study the effect of spatial structure, genetic drift, mutation, and selective pressure on the evolutionary dynamics in a simplified model of asexual organisms colonizing a new t…
Structure and dynamics of topological defects in a glassy liquid on a negatively curved manifold
François Sausset, Gilles Tarjus, David R. Nelson
We study the low-temperature regime of an atomic liquid on the hyperbolic plane by means of molecular dynamics simulation and we compare the results to a continuum theory of defect…
Unzipping Vortices in Type-II Superconductors
Yariv Kafri, David R. Nelson, Anatoli Polkovnikov
The unzipping of vortex lines using magnetic-force microscopy from extended defects is studied theoretically. We study both the unzipping isolated vortex from common defects, such…
Vortex pinning by meandering line defects in planar superconductors
Eleni Katifori, David R. Nelson
To better understand vortex pinning in thin superconducting slabs, we study the interaction of a single fluctuating vortex filament with a curved line defect in (1+1) dimensions. T…
Sequence heterogeneity and the dynamics of molecular motors
Yariv Kafri, David R. Nelson
The effect of sequence heterogeneity on the dynamics of molecular motors is reviewed and analyzed using a set of recently introduced lattice models. First, we review results for th…
Unzipping flux lines from extended defects in type-II superconductors
Yariv Kafri, David R. Nelson, Anatoli Polkovnikov
With magnetic force microscopy in mind, we study the unbinding transition of individual flux lines from extended defects like columnar pins and twin planes in type II superconducto…
Dynamics of Molecular Motors with Finite Processivity on Heterogeneous Tracks
Yariv Kafri, David K. Lubensky, David R. Nelson
The dynamics of molecular motors which occasionally detach from a heterogeneous track like DNA or RNA is considered. Motivated by recent single molecule experiments, we study a sim…
Dynamics of Molecular Motors and Polymer Translocation with Sequence Heterogeneity
Yariv Kafri, David K. Lubensky, David R. Nelson
The effect of sequence heterogeneity on polynucleotide translocation across a pore and on simple models of molecular motors such as helicases, DNA polymerase/exonuclease and RNA po…
Interacting Topological Defects on Frozen Topographies
Mark J. Bowick, David R. Nelson, Alex Travesset
We propose and analyze an effective free energy describing the physics of disclination defects in particle arrays constrained to move on an arbitrary two-dimensional surface. At fi…
Vortex Pinning and the Non-Hermitian Mott Transition
Raphael A. Lehrer, David R. Nelson
The boson Hubbard model has been extensively studied as a model of the zero temperature superfluid/insulator transition in Helium-4 on periodic substrates. It can also serve as a m…
Non-Hermitian Delocalization and Eigenfunctions
Naomichi Hatano, David R. Nelson
Recent literature on delocalization in non-Hermitian systems has stressed criteria based on sensitivity of eigenvalues to boundary conditions and the existence of a non-zero curren…
Polymer Winding Numbers and Quantum Mechanics
David R. Nelson, Ady Stern
The winding of a single polymer in thermal equilibrium around a repulsive cylindrical obstacle is perhaps the simplest example of statistical mechanics in a multiply connected geom…