Alessandro Sarracino

Brownian ratchet in a thermal bath driven by Coulomb friction.

The rectification of unbiased fluctuations, also known as the ratchet effect, is normally obtained under statistical nonequilibrium conditions. Here we propose a new ratchet mechanism where a thermal bath solicits the random rotation of an asymmetric wheel, which is also subject to Coulomb friction due to solid-on-solid contacts. Numerical simulations and analytical calculations demonstrate a net drift induced by friction. If the thermal bath is replaced by a granular gas, the well-known granular ratchet effect also intervenes, becoming dominant at high collision rates. For our chosen wheel shape the granular effect acts in the opposite direction with respect to the friction-induced torque, resulting in the inversion of the ratchet direction as the collision rate increases. We have realized a new granular ratchet experiment where both these ratchet effects are observed, as well as the predicted inversion at their crossover. Our discovery paves the way to the realization of micro and submicrometer Brownian motors in an equilibrium fluid, based purely upon nanofriction.

Irreversible dynamics of a massive intruder in dense granular fluids

A Generalized Langevin Equation with exponential memory is proposed for the dynamics of a massive intruder in a dense granular fluid. The model reproduces numerical correlation and response functions, violating the Equilibrium Fluctuation-Dissipation Relations. The source of memory is identified in the coupling of the tracer velocity V with a spontaneous local velocity field U in the surrounding fluid: fluctuations of this field introduce a new time scale with its associated length scale. Such identification allows us to measure the intruders fluctuating entropy production as a function of V and U, obtaining a neat verification of the fluctuation relation.

Nonlinear response and fluctuation-dissipation relations

A unified derivation of the off-equilibrium fluctuation dissipation relations (FDRs) is given for Ising and continuous spins to arbitrary order, within the framework of Markovian stochastic dynamics. Knowledge of the FDRs allows one to develop zero field algorithms for the efficient numerical computation of the response functions. Two applications are presented. In the first one, the problem of probing for the existence of a growing cooperative length scale is considered in those cases, like in glassy systems, where the linear FDR is of no use. The effectiveness of an appropriate second order FDR is illustrated in the test case of the Edwards-Anderson spin glass in one and two dimensions. In the second application, the important problem of the definition of an off-equilibrium effective temperature through the nonlinear FDR is considered. It is shown that, in the case of coarsening systems, the effective temperature derived from the second order FDR is consistent with the one obtained from the linear FDR.

Fluctuating hydrodynamics and correlation lengths in a driven granular fluid

Static and dynamical structure factors for shear and longitudinal modes of the velocity and density fields are computed for a granular system fluidized by a stochastic bath with friction. Analytical expressions are obtained through fluctuating hydrodynamics and are successfully compared with numerical simulations up to a volume fraction ~ 50%. The hydrodynamic noise is the sum of the external noise due to the bath and the internal one due to collisions. Only the latter is assumed to satisfy the fluctuation-dissipation relation with the average granular temperature. The static velocity structure factors and display a general non-constant behavior with two plateaux at large and small k, representing the granular temperature Tg and the bath temperature Tb > Tg respectively. From this behavior, two different velocity correlation lengths are measured, both increasing as the packing fraction is raised. This growth of spatial order is in agreement with the behavior of dynamical structure factors, the decay of which becomes slower and slower at increasing density.

Nonequilibrium fluctuation-dissipation theorem and heat production

We use a relationship between response and correlation function in nonequilibrium systems to establish a connection between the heat production and the deviations from the equilibrium fluctuation-dissipation theorem. This scheme extends the Harada-Sasa formulation [Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 130602 (2005)], obtained for Langevin equations in steady states, as it also holds for transient regimes and for discrete jump processes involving small entropic changes. Moreover, a general formulation includes two times and the new concepts of two-time work, kinetic energy, and of a two-time heat exchange that can be related to a nonequilibrium “effective temperature.” Numerical simulations of a chain of anharmonic oscillators and of a model for a molecular motor driven by adenosine triphosphate hydrolysis illustrate these points.

Nonlinear susceptibilities and the measurement of a cooperative length

We derive the exact beyond-linear fluctuation dissipation relation, connecting the response of a generic observable to the appropriate correlation functions, for Markov systems. The relation, which takes a similar form for systems governed by a master equation or by a Langevin equation, can be derived to every order, in large generality with respect to the considered model, in equilibrium and out of equilibrium as well. On the basis of the fluctuation dissipation relation we propose a particular response function, namely the second order susceptibility of the two-particle correlation function, as an effective quantity to detect and quantify cooperative effects in glasses and disordered systems. We test this idea by numerical simulations of the Edwards-Anderson model in one and two dimensions.

Diffusion and Subdiffusion of Interacting Particles on Comblike Structures.

We study the dynamics of a tracer particle (TP) on a comb lattice populated by randomly moving hard-core particles in the dense limit. We first consider the case where the TP is constrained to move on the backbone of the comb only. In the limit of high density of the particles, we present exact analytical results for the cumulants of the TP position, showing a subdiffusive behavior ∼t^{3/4}. At longer times, a second regime is observed where standard diffusion is recovered, with a surprising nonanalytical dependence of the diffusion coefficient on the particle density. When the TP is allowed to visit the teeth of the comb, based on a mean-field-like continuous time random walk description, we unveil a rich and complex scenario with several successive subdiffusive regimes, resulting from the coupling between the geometrical constraints of the comb lattice and particle interactions. In this case, remarkably, the presence of hard-core interactions asymptotically speeds up the TP motion along the backbone of the structure.

Nonequilibrium fluctuations in a frictional granular motor: experiments and kinetic theory.

We report the study of an experimental granular Brownian motor, inspired by the one published in Eshuis et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 248001 (2010)], but different in some ingredients. As in that previous work, the motor is constituted by a rotating blade, the surfaces of which break the rotation-inversion symmetry through alternated patches of different inelasticity, immersed in a gas of granular particles. The main difference of our experimental setup is in the orientation of the main axis, which is parallel to the (vertical) direction of shaking of the granular fluid, guaranteeing an isotropic distribution for the velocities of colliding grains, characterized by a variance v(0)(2). We also keep the granular system diluted, in order to compare with Boltzmann-equation-based kinetic theory. In agreement with theory, we observe the crucial role of Coulomb friction which induces two main regimes: (i) rare collisions, with an average angular velocity ~v(0)(3), and (ii) frequent collisions (FC), with ~v(0). We also study the fluctuations of the angle spanned in a large-time interval Δθ, which in the FC regime is proportional to the work done upon the motor. We observe that the fluctuation relation is satisfied with a slope which weakly depends on the relative collision frequency.

Ratchet effect driven by Coulomb friction: the asymmetric Rayleigh piston.

The effect of Coulomb friction is studied in the framework of collisional ratchets. It turns out that the average drift of these devices can be expressed as the combination of a term related to the lack of equipartition between the probe and the surrounding bath, and a term featuring the average frictional force. We illustrate this general result in the asymmetric Rayleigh piston, showing how Coulomb friction can induce a ratchet effect in a Brownian particle in contact with an equilibrium bath. An explicit analytical expression for the average velocity of the piston is obtained in the rare collision limit. Numerical simulations support the analytical findings.

Unified rheology of vibro-fluidized dry granular media: From slow dense flows to fast gas-like regimes

Granular media take on great importance in industry and geophysics, posing a severe challenge to materials science. Their response properties elude known soft rheological models, even when the yield-stress discontinuity is blurred by vibro-fluidization. Here we propose a broad rheological scenario where average stress sums up a frictional contribution, generalizing conventional μ(I)-rheology, and a kinetic collisional term dominating at fast fluidization. Our conjecture fairly describes a wide series of experiments in a vibrofluidized vane setup, whose phenomenology includes velocity weakening, shear thinning, a discontinuous thinning transition, and gaseous shear thickening. The employed setup gives access to dynamic fluctuations, which exhibit a broad range of timescales. In the slow dense regime the frequency of cage-opening increases with stress and enhances, with respect to μ(I)-rheology, the decrease of viscosity. Diffusivity is exponential in the shear stress in both thinning and thickening regimes, with a huge growth near the transition.