Rafael Gallego

Scaling of local slopes, conservation laws, and anomalous roughening in surface growth.

We argue that symmetries and conservation laws greatly restrict the form of the terms entering the long wavelength description of growth models exhibiting anomalous roughening. This is exploited to show by dynamic renormalization group arguments that intrinsic anomalous roughening cannot occur in local growth models. However, some conserved dynamics may display superroughening if a given type of term is present.

Conditioning and accurate computations with Pascal matrices

A result on the ill-conditioning of Pascal matrices is proved. However, it is shown that bidiagonal factorizations of Pascal matrices can be applied to perform computations with high relative accuracy.

Growth factors of pivoting strategies associated with Neville elimination

Neville elimination is a direct method for solving linear systems. Several pivoting strategies for Neville elimination, including pairwise pivoting, are analyzed. Bounds for two different kinds of growth factors are provided. Finally, an approximation of the average normalized growth factor associated with several pivoting strategies is computed and analyzed using random matrices.

Pseudospectral versus finite-difference schemes in the numerical integration of stochastic models of surface growth

We present a comparison between finite differences schemes and a pseudospectral method applied to the numerical integration of stochastic partial differential equations that model surface growth. We have studied, in 1+1 dimensions, the Kardar, Parisi, and Zhang model (KPZ) and the Lai, Das Sarma, and Villain model (LDV). The pseudospectral method appears to be the most stable for a given time step for both models. This means that the time up to which we can follow the temporal evolution of a given system is larger for the pseudospectral method. Moreover, for the KPZ model, a pseudospectral scheme gives results closer to the predictions of the continuum model than those obtained through finite difference methods. On the other hand, some numerical instabilities appearing with finite difference methods for the LDV model are absent when a pseudospectral integration is performed. These numerical instabilities give rise to an approximate multiscaling observed in earlier numerical simulations. With the pseudospectral approach no multiscaling is seen in agreement with the continuum model.

A collection of examples where Neville elimination outperforms Gaussian elimination

Neville elimination is an elimination procedure alternative to Gaussian elimination. It is very useful when dealing with totally positive matrices, for which nice stability results are known. Here we include examples, most of them test matrices used in MATLAB which are not totally positive matrices, where Neville elimination outperforms Gaussian elimination.

Period stabilization in the Busse–Heikes model of the Küppers–Lortz instability

The Busse–Heikes dynamical model is described in terms of relaxational and non-relaxational dynamics. Within this dynamical picture a diverging alternating period is calculated in a reduced dynamics given by a time-dependent Hamiltonian with decreasing energy. A mean period is calculated which results from noise stabilization of a mean energy. The consideration of spatial-dependent amplitudes leads to vertex formation. The competition of front motion around the vertices and the Kuppers–Lortz instability in determining an alternating period is discussed.

Synchronizing spatio-temporal chaos with imperfect models: A stochastic surface growth picture

We study the synchronization of two spatially extended dynamical systems where the models have imperfections. We show that the synchronization error across space can be visualized as a rough surface governed by the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation with both upper and lower bounding walls corresponding to nonlinearities and model discrepancies, respectively. Two types of model imperfections are considered: parameter mismatch and unresolved fast scales, finding in both cases the same qualitative results. The consistency between different setups and systems indicates that the results are generic for a wide family of spatially extended systems.

Predictor–corrector pseudospectral methods for stochastic partial differential equations with additive white noise

Abstract Commonly used finite-difference numerical schemes show some deficiencies in the integration of certain types of stochastic partial differential equations with additive white noise. In this paper efficient predictor–corrector spectral schemes to integrate these equations are discussed. They are all based on the discretization of the system in Fourier space. The nonlinear terms are treated using a pseudospectral approach so as to speed up the computations without a significant loss of accuracy. The proposed schemes are applied to solve, both in one and two spatial dimensions, two paradigmatic continuum models arising in the context of nonequilibrium dynamics of growing interfaces: the Kardar–Parisi–Zhang and Lai–Das Sarma–Villain equations. Numerical results about the Lai–Das Sarma–Villain equation in two spatial dimensions have not been previously reported in the literature.

Iterative refinement for Neville elimination

Neville elimination is an elimination procedure that is very useful when dealing with totally positive matrices. We provide a sufficient condition for the convergence of the iterative refinement using Neville elimination.

Synchronization scenarios in the Winfree model of coupled oscillators

Fifty years ago Arthur Winfree proposed a deeply influential mean-field model for the collective synchronization of large populations of phase oscillators. Here we provide a detailed analysis of the model for some special, analytically tractable cases. Adopting the thermodynamic limit, we derive an ordinary differential equation that exactly describes the temporal evolution of the macroscopic variables in the Ott-Antonsen invariant manifold. The low-dimensional model is then thoroughly investigated for a variety of pulse types and sinusoidal phase response curves (PRCs). Two structurally different synchronization scenarios are found, which are linked via the mutation of a Bogdanov-Takens point. From our results, we infer a general rule of thumb relating pulse shape and PRC offset with each scenario. Finally, we compare the exact synchronization threshold with the prediction of the averaging approximation given by the Kuramoto-Sakaguchi model. At the leading order, the discrepancy appears to behave as an odd function of the PRC offset.