Lasse Laurson

Fluctuations in fluid invasion into disordered media.

Interfaces moving in a disordered medium exhibit stochastic velocity fluctuations obeying universal scaling relations related to the presence or absence of conservation laws. For fluid invasion of porous media, we show that the fluctuations of the velocity are governed by a geometry-dependent length scale arising from fluid conservation. This result is compared to the statistics resulting from a nonequilibrium (depinning) transition between a moving interface and a stationary, pinned one.

Electric field driven magnetic domain wall motion in ferromagnetic-ferroelectric heterostructures

We investigate magnetic domain wall (MDW) dynamics induced by applied electric fields in ferromagnetic-ferroelectric thin-film heterostructures. In contrast to conventional driving mechanisms where MDW motion is induced directly by magnetic fields or electric currents, MDW motion arises here as a result of strong pinning of MDWs onto ferroelectric domain walls (FDWs) via local strain coupling. By performing extensive micromagnetic simulations, we find several dynamical regimes, including instabilities such as spin wave emission and complex transformations of the MDW structure. In all cases, the time-averaged MDW velocity equals that of the FDW, indicating the absence of Walker breakdown.

Fluctuations and scaling in creep deformation

The spatial fluctuations of deformation are studied in the creep in Andrades power law and the logarithmic phases, using paper samples. Measurements by the digital image correlation technique show that the relative strength of the strain rate fluctuations increases with time, in both creep regimes. In the Andrade creep phase characterized by a power-law decay of the strain rate ϵt∼t(-θ), with θ≈0.7, the fluctuations obey Δϵt∼t(-γ), with γ≈0.5. The local deformation follows a data collapse appropriate for a phase transition. Similar behavior is found in a crystal plasticity model, with a jamming or yielding transition.

Power spectra of self-organized critical sandpiles

We analyse the power spectra of avalanches in two classes of self-organized critical sandpile models, the Bak–Tang–Wiesenfeld model and the Manna model. We show that these decay with a 1/fα power law, where the exponent value α is significantly smaller than 2 and equals the scaling exponent relating the avalanche size to its duration. We discuss the basic ingredients behind this result, such as the scaling of the average avalanche shape.

Interevent Correlations from Avalanches Hiding Below the Detection Threshold

Numerous systems ranging from deformation of materials to earthquakes exhibit bursty dynamics, which consist of a sequence of events with a broad event size distribution. Very often these events are observed to be temporally correlated or clustered, evidenced by power-law-distributed waiting times separating two consecutive activity bursts. We show how such interevent correlations arise simply because of a finite detection threshold, created by the limited sensitivity of the measurement apparatus, or used to subtract background activity or noise from the activity signal. Data from crack-propagation experiments and numerical simulations of a nonequilibrium crack-line model demonstrate how thresholding leads to correlated bursts of activity by separating the avalanche events into subavalanches. The resulting temporal subavalanche correlations are well described by our general scaling description of thresholding-induced correlations in crackling noise.

Dynamic Hysteresis in Cyclic Deformation of Crystalline Solids

The hysteresis or internal friction in the deformation of crystalline solids stressed cyclically is studied from the viewpoint of collective dislocation dynamics. Stress-controlled simulations of a dislocation dynamics model at various loading frequencies and amplitudes are performed to study the stress-strain rate hysteresis. The hysteresis loop areas exhibit a maximum at a characteristic frequency and a power law frequency dependence in the low frequency limit, with the power law exponent exhibiting two regimes, corresponding to the jammed and the yielding or moving phases of the system, respectively. The first of these phases of the system exhibits nontrivial critical-like viscoelastic dynamics, crossing over to intermittent viscoplastic deformation for higher stress amplitudes.

Dynamical Correlations near Dislocation Jamming

Dislocation assemblies exhibit a jamming or yielding transition at a critical external shear stress value σ=σ{c}. Here we study the heterogeneous and collective nature of dislocation dynamics within a crystal plasticity model close to σ{c}, by considering the first-passage properties of the dislocation dynamics. As the transition is approached in the moving phase, the first-passage time distribution exhibits scaling, and a related peak dynamical susceptibility χ{4}{*} diverges as χ{4}{*}∼(σ-σ{c}){-α}, with α≈1.1. We relate this scaling to an avalanche description of the dynamics. While the static structural correlations are found to be independent of the external stress, we identify a diverging dynamical correlation length ξ{y} in the direction perpendicular to the dislocation glide motion.

Head-to-head domain wall structures in wide Permalloy strips

We analyze the equilibrium micromagnetic domain wall structures encountered in Permalloy strips of a wide range of thicknesses and widths, with strip widths up to several micrometers. By performing an extensive set of micromagnetic simulations, we show that the equilibrium phase diagram of the domain wall structures exhibits in addition to the previously found structures (symmetric and asymmetric transverse walls, vortex wall) also double vortex and triple vortex domain walls for large enough strip widths and thicknesses. Also several metastable domain wall structures are found for wide and/or thick strips. We discuss the details of the relaxation process from random magnetization initial states towards the stable domain wall structure, and show that our results are robust with respect to changes of e.g. the magnitude of the Gilbert damping constant and details of the initial conditions.

Comment on "self-organized criticality and absorbing states: lessons from the Ising model".

According to Pruessner and Peters [G. Pruessner and O. Peters, Phys. Rev. E 73, 025106(R) (2006)], the finite-size scaling exponents of the order parameter in sandpile models depend on the tuning of driving and dissipation rates with system size. We point out that the same is not true for avalanches in the slow driving limit.

Osmotic stress affects functional properties of human melanoma cell lines

Understanding the role of microenvironment in cancer growth and metastasis is a key issue for cancer research. Here, we study the effect of osmotic pressure on the functional properties of primary and metastatic melanoma cell lines. In particular, we experimentally quantify individual cell motility and transmigration capability. We then perform a circular scratch assay to study how a cancer cell front invades an empty space. Our results show that primary melanoma cells are sensitive to a low osmotic pressure, while metastatic cells are less. To better understand the experimental results, we introduce and study a continuous model for the dynamics of a cell layer and a stochastic discrete model for cell proliferation and diffusion. The two models capture essential features of the experimental results and allow to make predictions for a wide range of experimentally measurable parameters.