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Nature is intrinsically heterogeneous, and remarkable phenomena can only be observed in the presence of intrinsically nonlinear heterogeneities. Spontaneous pattern formation in nature has fascinated humankind for centuries, and the understanding of the underlying symmetry-breaking instabilities has been of longstanding scientific interest. In this article, we provide theoretical and experimental evidence that heterogeneities can generate convection (drift instabilities) in the amplitude of localised patterns. We derive a minimal theoretical model describing the growth of localised Faraday patterns under heterogeneous parametric drive, unveiling the presence of symmetry-breaking nonlinear gradients. The model reveals new dynamics in the phase of the underlying patterns, exhibiting convective instabilities when the system crosses a secondary bifurcation point. We discuss the impact of our results in the understanding of convective instabilities induced by heterogeneities in generic nonlinear extended systems far from equilibrium., Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures. Under review

In magnetic films driven by spin-polarized currents, the perpendicular-to-plane anisotropy is equivalent to breaking the time translation symmetry, i.e., to a parametric pumping. In this work, we numerically study those current-driven magnets via the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert-Slonczewski equation in one spatial dimension. We consider a space-dependent anisotropy field in the parametric-like regime. The anisotropy profile is antisymmetric to the middle point of the system. We find several dissipative states and dynamical behavior and focus on localized patterns that undergo oscillatory and phase instabilities. Using numerical simulations, we characterize the localized states' bifurcations and present the corresponding diagram of phases., Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures

We investigate a new dynamical system that describes tumor-host interaction. The equation that describes the untreated tumor growth is based on non-extensive statistical mechanics. Recently, this model has been shown to fit successfully exponential, Gompertz, logistic, and power-law tumor growths. We have been able to include as many hallmarks of cancer as possible. We study also the dynamic response of cancer under therapy. Using our model, we can make predictions about the different outcomes when we change the parameters, and/or the initial conditions. We can determine the importance of different factors to influence tumor growth. We discover synergistic therapeutic effects of different treatments and drugs. Cancer is generally untreatable using conventional monotherapy. We consider conventional therapies, oncogene-targeted therapies, tumor-suppressors gene-targeted therapies, immunotherapies, anti-angiogenesis therapies, virotherapy, among others. We need therapies with the potential to target both tumor cells and the tumors' microenvironment. Drugs that target oncogenes and tumor-suppressor genes can be effective in the treatment of some cancers. However, most tumors do reoccur. We have found that the success of the new therapeutic agents can be seen when used in combination with other cancer-cell-killing therapies. Our results have allowed us to design a combinational therapy that can lead to the complete eradication of cancer., Comment: 35 pages, 6 figures

We investigate analytically and numerically the stability of bubble-like fluxons in disk-shaped heterogeneous Josephson junctions. Using ring solitons as a model of bubble fluxons in the two-dimensional sine-Gordon equation, we show that the insertion of coaxial dipole currents prevents their collapse. We characterize the onset of instability by introducing a single parameter that couples the radius of the bubble fluxon with the properties of the injected current. For different combination of parameters, we report the formation of stable oscillating bubbles, the emergence of internal modes, and bubble breakup due to internal mode instability. We show that the critical germ depends on the ratio between its radius and the steepness of the wall separating the different phases in the system. If the steepness of the wall is increased (decreased), the critical radius decreases (increases). Our theoretical findings are in good agreement with numerical simulations. We discuss applications in quantum information technologies., Comment: 21 pages, 13 figures

We investigate the bounce solutions in vacuum decay problems. We show that it is possible to have a stable false vacuum in a potential that is unbounded from below., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures

Faraday waves are a classic example of a system in which an extended pattern emerges under spatially uniform forcing. Motivated by systems in which uniform excitation is not plausible, we study both experimentally and theoretically the effect of heterogeneous forcing on Faraday waves. Our experiments show that vibrations restricted to finite regions lead to the formation of localized subharmonic wave patterns and change the onset of the instability. The prototype model used for the theoretical calculations is the parametrically driven and damped nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation, which is known to describe well Faraday-instability regimes. For an energy injection with a Gaussian spatial profile, we show that the evolution of the envelope of the wave pattern can be reduced to a Weber-equation eigenvalue problem. Our theoretical results provide very good predictions of our experimental observations provided that the decay length scale of the Gaussian profile is much larger than the pattern wavelength., Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, Accepted

Nonlinear waves that collide with localized defects exhibit complex behavior. Apart from reflection, transmission, and annihilation of an incident wave, a local inhomogeneity can activate internal modes of solitons, producing many impressive phenomena. In this work, we investigate a two-dimensional sine-Gordon model perturbed by a family of localized forces. We observed the formation of bubble-like and drop-like structures due to local internal shape modes instabilities. We describe the formation of such structures on the basis of a one-dimensional theory of activation of internal modes of sG solitons. An interpretation of the observed phenomena, in the context of phase transitions theory, is given. Implications in Josephson junctions with a current dipole device are discussed., Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. E