F. de los Santos

Phase transitions and dynamics of bulk and interfacial water

New experiments on water at the surface of proteins at very low temperature display intriguing dynamic behaviors. The extreme conditions of these experiments make it difficult to explore the wide range of thermodynamic state points needed to offer a suitable interpretation. Detailed simulations suffer from the same problem, where equilibration times at low temperature become extremely long. We show how Monte Carlo simulations and mean field calculations using a tractable model of water help interpret the experimental results. Here we summarize the results for bulk water and investigate the thermodynamic and dynamic properties of supercooled water at an interface.

Stochastic theory of non-equilibrium wetting

We study a Langevin equation describing non-equilibrium depinning and wetting transitions. Attention is focused on short-ranged attractive substrate-interface potentials. We confirm the existence of first-order depinning transitions, in the temperature-chemical potential diagram, and a tricritical point beyond which the transition becomes a non-equilibrium complete wetting transition. The coexistence of pinned and depinned interfaces occurs over a finite area, in line with other non-equilibrium systems that exhibit first-order transitions. In addition, we find two types of phase coexistence, one of which is characterized by spatio-temporal intermittency (STI). A finite-size analysis of the depinning time is used to characterize the different coexisting regimes. Finally, a stationary distribution of characteristic triangles or facets was shown to be responsible for the structure of the STI phase.

Universality classes of driven lattice gases

Motivated by some recent criticisms to our alternative Langevin equation for driven lattice gases (DLG) under an infinitely large driving field, we revisit the derivation of such an equation, and test its validity. As a result, an additional term, coming from a careful consideration of entropic contributions, is added to the equation. This term heals all the recently reported generic infrared singularities. The emerging equation is then identical to that describing randomly driven diffusive systems. This fact confirms our claim that the infinite driving limit is singular, and that the main relevant ingredient determining the critical behavior of the DLG in this limit is the anisotropy and not the presence of a current. Different aspects of our picture are discussed, and it is concluded that it constitutes a very plausible scenario to rationalize the critical behavior of the DLG and variants of it.

Generic two-phase coexistence in nonequilibrium systems

Abstract.A beautifully simple model introduced a couple of decades ago, Toom’s cellular automaton, revealed that non-equilibrium systems may exhibit generic bistability, i.e. two-phase coexistence over a finite area of the (two-dimensional) phase diagram, in violation of the equilibrium Gibbs phase rule. In this paper we analyse two interfacial models, describing more realistic situations, that share with Toom’s model a phase diagram with a broad region of phase coexistence. An analysis of the interfacial models yields conditions for generic bistability in terms of physically relevant parameters that may be controlled experimentally.

Revivals of electron currents and topological-band insulator transitions in 2D gapped Dirac materials

We have studied the time evolution of electron wave packets in silicene under perpendicular magnetic and electric fields to characterize topological-band insulator transitions. We have found that at the charge neutrality points, the periodicities exhibited by the wave packet dynamics (classical and revival times) reach maximum values, and that the electron currents reflect the transition from a topological insulator to a band insulator. This provides a signature of topological phase transition in silicene that can be extended to other 2D Dirac materials isostructural to graphene and with a buckled structure and a significant spin-orbit coupling.

Renormalisation group determination of the order of the DNA denaturation transition

We report on the nature of the thermal-denaturation transition of homogeneous DNA as determined from a renormalisation group analysis of the Peyrard-Bishop-Dauxois model. Our approach is based on an analogy with the phenomenon of critical wetting that goes further than previous qualitative comparisons, and shows that the transition is continuous for the average base-pair separation. However, since the range of universal critical behaviour appears to be very narrow, numerically observed denaturation transitions may look first-order, as it has been reported in the literature.

Zitterbewegung in monolayer silicene in a magnetic field

Abstract We study the Zitterbewegung in monolayer silicene under a perpendicular magnetic field. Using an effective Hamiltonian, we have investigated the autocorrelation function and the density currents in this material. Moreover, we have analyzed other types of periodicities of the system (classical and revival times). Finally, the above results are compared with their counterparts in two other monolayer materials subject to a magnetic field: graphene and MoS 2 .

Diffusion-limited deposition with dipolar interactions: Fractal dimension and multifractal structure

Computer simulations are used to generate two-dimensional diffusion-limited deposits of dipoles. The structure of these deposits is analyzed by measuring some global quantities: the density of the deposit and the lateral correlation function at a given height, the mean height of the upper surface for a given number of deposited particles, and the interfacial width at a given height. Evidences are given that the fractal dimension of the deposits remains constant as the deposition proceeds, independently of the dipolar strength. These same deposits are used to obtain the growth probability measure through the Monte Carlo techniques. It is found that the distribution of growth probabilities obeys multifractal scaling, i.e., it can be analyzed in terms of its f(alpha) multifractal spectrum. For low dipolar strengths, the f(alpha) spectrum is similar to that of diffusion-limited aggregation. Our results suggest that for increasing the dipolar strength both the minimal local growth exponent alpha(min) and the information dimension D(1) decrease, while the fractal dimension remains the same.

Diffusion-limited deposition of dipolar particles.

Deposits of dipolar particles are investigated by means of extensive Monte Carlo simulations. We found that the effect of the interactions is described by an initial, nonuniversal, scaling regime characterized by orientationally ordered deposits. In the dipolar regime, the order and geometry of the clusters depend on the strength of the interactions and the magnetic properties are tunable by controlling the growth conditions. At later stages, the growth is dominated by thermal effects and the diffusion-limited universal regime obtains, at finite temperatures. At low temperatures the crossover size increases exponentially as T decreases and at T=0 only the dipolar regime is observed.

Continuum Field Model of Driven Lattice Gases

We define a soft-spins approach to the driven lattice gas model (C-DLG) at the level of a master equation. As a result, we obtain a Langevin equation for the C-DLG which depends on the microscopic transition probabilities. We then show how this dependence affects the critical behavior of the the C-DLG, placing the finite- and the infinite-driving-field cases into different universality classes. In the same vein, we propose a continuum description of two other well-known anisotropic, conservative, nonequilibrium models: the two-temperature model (C-TT) and the randomly driven model (C-RDLG). We show that the C-RDLG with infinite averaged field and the C-TT with T‖=∞ fall in the same universality class as the infinitely driven C-DLG. A Langevin equation for the driven bilayer lattice gas model is also presented.