Thermal rectification in mass-asymmetric one-dimensional anharmonic oscillator lattices with and without a ballistic spacer.

In this work we perform a systematic analysis of various structural parameters that have influence on the thermal rectification effect, i.e. asymmetrical heat flow, and the negative differential thermal resistance -reduction of the heat flux as the applied thermal bias is increased- present in a one-dimensional, segmented mass-graded system consisting of a coupled nearest-neighbor harmonic oscillator lattice (ballistic spacer) and two diffusive leads (modeled by a substrate potential) attached to the lattice at both boundaries. At variance with previous works, we consider the size of the spacer as smaller than that of the leads. Also considered is the case where the leads are connected along the whole length of the oscillator lattice; that is, in the absence of the ballistic spacer. Upon variation of the system's parameters it was determined that the performance of the device, as quantified by the spectral properties, is largely enhanced in the absence of the ballistic spacer for the small system-size limit herein considered.

Thermal rectification in three-dimensional mass-graded anharmonic oscillator lattices.

In this work we study the thermal rectification efficiency, i.e., asymmetric heat flow, of a three-dimensional mass-graded anharmonic lattice of length N and width W by means of nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations. The obtained rectification, which is of the same order of magnitude as that of the corresponding one-dimensional lattice, saturates at low values of the aspect ratio W/N, consistent with the already known behavior of the corresponding heat fluxes of the homogeneous system under analogous conditions. The maximum rectification is obtained in the temperature range wherein no rectification could be obtained in other one-dimensional systems, as well as in the corresponding one-dimensional instance of the model studied herein.

Thermal rectification in oscillator lattices with a ballistic spacer and next nearest-neighbor interactions.

In this work we study the asymmetric heat flow, i.e., thermal rectification, of a one-dimensional, mass-graded system consisting of a coupled harmonic oscillator lattice (ballistic spacer) and two diffusive leads attached to the boundaries of the former with both nearest-neighbor and next nearest-neighbor (NNN) interactions. The latter enhance the rectification properties of the system and specially its independence on system size. The system presents a maximum rectification efficiency for a very precise value of the parameter that controls the coupling strength of the NNN interactions that depend on the temperature range wherein the device operates. The origin of this maximum value is the asymmetric local heat flow response corresponding to the NNN contribution at both sides of the lighter mass-loaded diffusive lead as quantified by the spectral properties. Upon variation of the system's parameters the performance of the device is always enhanced in the presence of NNN interactions.

Energy transport in harmonically driven segmented Frenkel-Kontorova lattices.

In this work we study the energy transport in a one-dimensional system composed of two dissimilar Frenkel-Kontorova lattices connected by a time-modulated coupling and in contact with two heat reservoirs operating at different temperature by means of molecular dynamics simulations. There is a value of the driving frequency at which the heat flux takes its maximum value, a phenomenon termed thermal resonance. Structural modifications in the lattice strongly alter the way in which the external driving interacts with the phonon bands. The overlap of the latter in the harmonic regime of the model determines the frequency range wherein resonance emerges. Parameter dependencies by which the incoming heat flux can be directed to either of the heat reservoirs are examined as well. Our results may be conductive to further developments in designing thermal devices.

Efficient harmonic oscillator chain energy harvester driven by colored noise.

We study the performance of an electromechanical harmonic oscillator chain as an energy harvester to extract power from finite-bandwidth ambient random vibrations, which are modelled by colored noise. The proposed device is numerically simulated and its performance assessed by means of the net electrical power generated and its efficiency in converting the external noise-supplied power into electrical power. Our main result is a much enhanced performance, both in the net electrical power delivered and in efficiency, of the harmonic chain with respect to the popular single oscillator resonator. Our numerical findings are explained by means of an analytical approximation, in excellent agreement with numerics.

Thermal rectification in mass-graded next-nearest-neighbor Fermi-Pasta-Ulam lattices.

We study the thermal rectification efficiency, i.e., quantification of asymmetric heat flow, of a one-dimensional mass-graded anharmonic oscillator Fermi-Pasta-Ulam lattice both with nearest-neighbor (NN) and next-nearest-neighbor (NNN) interactions. The system presents a maximum rectification efficiency for a very precise value of the parameter that controls the coupling strength of the NNN interactions, which also optimizes the rectification figure when its dependence on mass asymmetry and temperature differences is considered. The origin of the enhanced rectification is the asymmetric local heat flow response as the heat reservoirs are swapped when a finely tuned NNN contribution is taken into account. A simple theoretical analysis gives an estimate of the optimal NNN coupling in excellent agreement with our simulation results.

Non-Markovian barotropic-type and Hall-type fluctuation relations in crossed electric and magnetic fields.

In this paper we derive the non-Markovian barotropic-type and Hall-type fluctuation relations for noninteracting charged Brownian particles embedded in a memory heat bath and under the action of crossed electric and magnetic fields. We first obtain a more general non-Markovian fluctuation relation formulated within the context of a generalized Langevin equation with arbitrary friction memory kernel and under the action of a constant magnetic field and an arbitrary time-dependent electric field. It is shown that this fluctuation relation is related to the total amount of an effective work done on the charged particle as it is driven out of equilibrium by the applied time-dependent electric field. Both non-Markovian barotropic- and Hall-type fluctuation relations are then derived when the electric field is assumed to be also a constant vector pointing along just one axis. In the Markovian limit, we show explicitly that they reduce to the same results reported in the literature.

Detection of weak signals in memory thermal baths.

The nonlinear relaxation time and the statistics of the first passage time distribution in connection with the quasideterministic approach are used to detect weak signals in the decay process of the unstable state of a Brownian particle embedded in memory thermal baths. The study is performed in the overdamped approximation of a generalized Langevin equation characterized by an exponential decay in the friction memory kernel. A detection criterion for each time scale is studied: The first one is referred to as the receiver output, which is given as a function of the nonlinear relaxation time, and the second one is related to the statistics of the first passage time distribution.

Size effects on thermal rectification in mass-graded anharmonic lattices.

In this work we study the thermal rectification efficiency of a one-dimensional mass-graded anharmonic oscillator lattice at large system sizes. A modest increase in rectification is observed. When the magnitude of the mass gradient scales with the system size, the aforementioned effect increases substantially. This result can be unmistakeably attributed to an asymmetry in the local temperature profile obtained for the employed parameter values.

Brownian motion of a harmonic oscillator in a noninertial reference frame.

The Brownian motion of a charged harmonic oscillator in the presence of additional force fields, such as a constant magnetic field and arbitrary time-dependent electric and mechanical forces, is studied in a rotational reference frame under uniform motion. By assuming an isotropic surrounding medium (a scalar friction constant), we solve explicitly the Smoluchowski equation associated with the Langevin equation for the charged harmonic oscillator and calculate the mean square displacements along and orthogonal to the rotation axis.

Decay of unstable states driven by colored noise in an electromagnetic field.

The statistics of the first passage time in connection with the quasideterministic (QD) approach is used to characterize the non-Markovian decay process of the unstable state of an electrically charged Brownian particle under the influence of an electromagnetic field. We consider a constant magnetic field and a fluctuating electric field, which satisfies the properties of a Gaussian exponentially correlated noise. It is shown that at the beginning of the decay process, the magnetic field is strongly coupled to the noise correlation time and thus the requirements of the QD approach are not satisfied. Only in the approximation of a weak coupling between both parameters can the time characterization of the decay process be successfully achieved. Our theoretical approach relies on a Langevin equation for the charged particle in an arbitrary two-dimensional unstable potential and applies to a bistable potential as a particular case.

Covariant hydrodynamic Lyapunov modes and strong stochasticity threshold in Hamiltonian lattices.

We scrutinize the reliability of covariant and Gram-Schmidt Lyapunov vectors for capturing hydrodynamic Lyapunov modes (HLMs) in one-dimensional Hamiltonian lattices. We show that, in contrast with previous claims, HLMs do exist for any energy density, so that strong chaos is not essential for the appearance of genuine (covariant) HLMs. In contrast, Gram-Schmidt Lyapunov vectors lead to misleading results concerning the existence of HLMs in the case of weak chaos.

Non-Markovian stationary probability density for a harmonic oscillator in an electromagnetic field.

We calculate the exact solution of the Fokker-Planck equation for the stationary-state probability density of a harmonic oscillator embedded in an electromagnetic field. The magnetic field is assumed to be a constant and the electric field an external stochastic force with the properties of a Gaussian and exponentially correlated noise (Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process). In this work, we first study the problem in the absence of the magnetic field, then we obtain the complete solution and corroborate that the latter reduces to the former when the magnetic field is suppressed.

Detection of weak signals through nonlinear relaxation times for a Brownian particle in an electromagnetic field.

The detection of weak signals through nonlinear relaxation times for a Brownian particle in an electromagnetic field is studied in the dynamical relaxation of the unstable state, characterized by a two-dimensional bistable potential. The detection process depends on a dimensionless quantity referred to as the receiver output, calculated as a function of the nonlinear relaxation time and being a characteristic time scale of our system. The latter characterizes the complete dynamical relaxation of the Brownian particle as it relaxes from the initial unstable state of the bistable potential to its corresponding steady state. The one-dimensional problem is also studied to complement the description.

Efficient time-series detection of the strong stochasticity threshold in Fermi-Pasta-Ulam oscillator lattices.

In this work we study the possibility of detecting the so-called strong stochasticity threshold (i.e., the transition between weak and strong chaos as the energy density of the system is increased) in anharmonic oscillator chains by means of the 0-1 test for chaos. We compare the result of the aforementioned methodology with the scaling behavior of the largest Lyapunov exponent computed by means of tangent space dynamics, which has, so far, been the most reliable method available to detect the strong stochasticity threshold. We find that indeed the 0-1 test can perform the detection in the range of energy density values studied. Furthermore, we determined that conventional nonlinear time series analysis methods fail to properly compute the largest Lyapounov exponent even for very large data sets, whereas the computational effort of the 0-1 test remains the same in the whole range of values of the energy density considered with moderate size time series. Therefore, our results show that, for a qualitative probing of phase space, the 0-1 test can be an effective tool if its limitations are properly taken into account.

Detection of weak and large electric fields through the transient dynamics of a Brownian particle in an electromagnetic field.

In this work we present a mechanism to detect the presence of an external electric field of either weak or large amplitude by means of the decay process from an unstable state, described by a bistable potential, of an electrically charged Brownian particle embedded in a uniform electromagnetic field. Since the detection process takes place around the initial unstable state of the bistable potential, our theoretical description is given in the linear approximation of the aforementioned potential. The decay process is characterized through the statistics of the passage time distribution calculated by means of two theoretical approaches relying on the overdamped Langevin equation: one is the quasideterministic approach valid for large times and used for the detection of weak signals, whereas the other one is the rotational approach, valid for intermediate times and adequate for the detection of large electric-field amplitudes.

Structure of characteristic Lyapunov vectors in anharmonic Hamiltonian lattices.

In this work we perform a detailed study of the scaling properties of Lyapunov vectors (LVs) for two different one-dimensional Hamiltonian lattices: the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam and Φ^{4} models. In this case, characteristic (also called covariant) LVs exhibit qualitative similarities with those of dissipative lattices but the scaling exponents are different and seemingly nonuniversal. In contrast, backward LVs (obtained via Gram-Schmidt orthonormalizations) present approximately the same scaling exponent in all cases, suggesting it is an artificial exponent produced by the imposed orthogonality of these vectors. We are able to compute characteristic LVs in large systems thanks to a "bit reversible" algorithm, which completely obviates computer memory limitations.

Fokker-Planck-Kramers equations of a heavy ion in presence of external fields.

In this work, we use the same strategy studied in our previous work [J. I. Jiménez-Aquino and M. Romero-Bastida, Phys. Rev. E 74, 041117 (2006)] to solve exactly the Fokker-Planck (FP) and Fokker-Planck-Kramers (FPK) equations of a charged Brownian particle in a fluid (a heavy ion in a light gas) under the influence of external fields: a constant magnetic field and, in general, time-varying mechanical and electric fields. In our proposal, a time-dependent rotation matrix is introduced to transform the Langevin equation in the phase-space (r,u) to a new space (r',u') . As a result, the transformed Langevin equations are very similar to those of ordinary Brownian motion in the presence of those time-varying external forces only, without the magnetic field; therefore, the associated FP and FPK equations can easily be solved in those transformed spaces. To solve these equations, we use the methods of solution developed by Chandrasekhar in the field-free case of ordinary Brownian motion. We also calculate a more general transition probability density in the velocity space by assuming an initial heavy-ion Maxwellian distribution at a temperature generally different from that corresponding to equilibrium, the same as that used by Ferrari [Physica A 163, 596 (1990)].

Fokker-Planck-Kramers equation for a Brownian gas in a magnetic field.

In this work we give an alternative method to calculate the transition probability densities (TPD) for the velocity space, phase space, and Smoluchowsky configuration space of a Brownian gas of charged particles in the presence of a constant magnetic field. Our proposal consists in transforming, by means of a rotation matrix, the Langevin equation of a charged particle in the velocity space into another velocity space where the behavior is quite similar to that of ordinary Brownian motion. A similar strategy is also applied to the phase-space. In consequence, in the transformed space both the Fokker-Planck and Fokker-Planck-Kramers equations are solved following Chandrasekhar's methodology. Our results are compared with those obtained by Czopnik and Garbaczewski [Phys. Rev. E 63, 021105 (2001)].

Macroscopic evidence of microscopic dynamics in the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam oscillator chain from nonlinear time-series analysis.

The problem of detecting specific features of microscopic dynamics in the macroscopic behavior of a many-degrees-of-freedom system is investigated by analyzing the position and momentum time series of a heavy impurity embedded in a chain of nearest-neighbor anharmonic Fermi-Pasta-Ulam oscillators. Results obtained in a previous work [M. Romero-Bastida, Phys. Rev. E 69, 056204 (2004)] suggest that the impurity does not contribute significantly to the dynamics of the chain and can be considered as a probe for the dynamics of the system to which the impurity is coupled. The (r,tau) entropy, which measures the amount of information generated by unit time at different scales tau of time and r of the observable, is numerically computed by methods of nonlinear time-series analysis using the position and momentum signals of the heavy impurity for various values of the energy density epsilon (energy per degree of freedom) of the system and some values of the impurity mass M. Results obtained from these two time series are compared and discussed.