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Active turbulence, or chaotic self-organized collective motion, is often observed in concentrated suspensions of motile bacteria and other systems of self-propelled interacting agents. To date, there is no fundamental understanding of how geometrical confinement orchestrates active turbulence and alters its physical properties. Here, by combining large-scale experiments, computer modeling, and analytical theory, we have discovered a generic sequence of transitions occurring in bacterial suspensions confined in cylindrical wells of varying radii. With increasing the well's radius, we observed that persistent vortex motion gives way to periodic vortex reversals, four-vortex pulsations, and then well-developed active turbulence. Using computational modeling and analytical theory, we have shown that vortex reversal results from the nonlinear interaction of the first three azimuthal modes that become unstable with the radius increase. The analytical results account for our key experimental findings. To further validate our approach, we reconstructed equations of motion from experimental data. Our findings shed light on the universal properties of confined bacterial active matter and can be applied to various biological and synthetic active systems., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures in the main text + 15 pages, 7 figures in Supplementary Material

Bacteria aggregate through various intercellular interactions to build biofilms, but the effect of environmental changes thereupon remains largely unexplored. Here, by using an experimental device that overcomes past difficulties, we observed the collective response of Escherichia coli aggregates against dynamic changes in the growth condition. We discovered that nutrient starvation caused bacterial cells to arrange themselves into bundle-shaped clusters, developing a structure akin to that of smectic liquid crystal. The degree of the smectic-like bundle order was evaluated by a deep learning approach. Our experiments suggest that both the depletion attraction by extracellular polymeric substances and the growth arrest are essential for the bundle formation. Since these effects of nutrient starvation at the single-cell level are common to many bacterial species, bundle formation might also be common collective behavior that bacterial cells may exhibit under harsh environments., Comment: 12+6 pages, 5+6 figures, 2 tables

Integrable spin chains with a continuous non-Abelian symmetry, such as the one-dimensional isotropic Heisenberg model, show superdiffusive transport with little theoretical understanding. Although recent studies reported a surprising connection to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class in that case, this view was most recently questioned by discrepancies in full counting statistics. Here, by combining extensive numerical simulations of classical and quantum integrable isotropic spin chains with a framework developed by exact studies of the KPZ class, we characterize various two-point quantities that remain hitherto unexplored in spin chains, and find full agreement with KPZ scaling laws without adjustable parameters. This establishes the partial emergence of the KPZ class in integrable isotropic spin chains. Moreover, we reveal that the KPZ scaling laws are intact in the presence of an energy current, under the appropriate Galilean boost required by the propagation of spacetime correlation., Comment: 8+6 pages, 5+2 figures, 1 table; quantum spin simulations added

A wide range of disordered materials, from biological to geological assemblies, feature discrete elements undergoing large shape changes. How significant geometrical variations at the microscopic scale affect the response of the assembly, in particular rigidity transitions, is an ongoing challenge in soft matter physics. However, the lack of a model granular-like experimental system featuring large and versatile particle deformability impedes advances. Here, we explore the oscillatory shear response of a sponge-like granular assembly composed of highly compressible elastic rings. We highlight a progressive rigidity transition, switching from a yielded phase to a solid one by increasing density or decreasing shear amplitude. The rearranging yielded state consists of crystal clusters separated by melted regions; in contrast, the solid state remains amorphous and absorbs all imposed shear elastically. We rationalize this transition by uncovering an effective, attractive shear force between rings that emerges from a friction-geometry interplay. If friction is sufficiently high, the extent of the contacts between rings, captured analytically by elementary geometry, controls the rigidity transition., Comment: Main: 9 pages, 5 figures. Supplementary Material: 11 pages, 8 figures, 1 table, 7 videos

Topological defects are a universal concept across many disciplines, such as crystallography, liquid-crystalline physics, low-temperature physics, cosmology, and even biology. In nematic liquid crystals, topological defects called disclinations have been widely studied. For their three-dimensional (3D) dynamics, however, only recently have theoretical approaches dealing with fully 3D configurations been reported. Further, recent experiments have observed 3D disclination line reconnections, a phenomenon characteristic of defect line dynamics, but detailed discussions were limited to the case of approximately parallel defects. In this study, we focus on the case of two disclination lines that approach at finite angles and lie in separate planes, a more fundamentally 3D reconnection configuration. Observing and analyzing such reconnection events, we find the square-root law of the distance between disclinations and the decrease of the inter-disclination angle over time. We compare the experimental results with theory and find qualitative agreement on the scaling of distance and angle with time, but quantitative disagreement on distance and angle relative mobilities. To probe this disagreement, we derive the equations of motion for systems with reduced twist constant and also carry out simulations for this case. These, together with the experimental results, suggest that deformations of disclinations may be responsible for the disagreement., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures

We report a novel route to active turbulence, observed in numerical simulations of a polar active fluid model under confinement. To deal with large-scale computations with arbitrary geometries, we developed a GPU-based scheme that can be used for any boundary shape in a unified manner. For the circular confinement, as the radius was increased, we found a series of transitions first from a single stationary vortex to an oscillating pair of vortices, then through reentrant transitions between oscillatory and chaotic dynamics before finally reaching the active turbulence. The first transition turned out to be hysteretic, with the emergence of the oscillatory state consistent with the subcritical Hopf bifurcation. In dumbbell-shaped boundaries composed of two overlapping circles, we observed a transition comparable to the ferromagnetic-antiferromagnetic vortex-order transition reported in previous experiments, but the transition point turned out to show a qualitatively different geometry dependence., Comment: 15 pages, 20 figures

Densely packed, motile bacteria can adopt collective states not seen in conventional, passive materials. These states remain in many ways mysterious, and their physical characterization can aid our understanding of natural bacterial colonies and biofilms as well as materials in general. Here, we overcome challenges associated with generating uniformly growing, large, quasi-two-dimensional bacterial assemblies by a membrane-based microfluidic device and report the emergence of glassy states in two-dimensional suspension of Escherichia coli. As the number density increases by cell growth, populations of motile bacteria transition to a glassy state, where cells are packed and unable to move. This takes place in two steps, the first one suppressing only the orientational modes and the second one vitrifying the motion completely. Characterizing each phase through statistical analyses and investigations of individual motion of bacteria, we find not only characteristic features of glass such as rapid slowdown, dynamic heterogeneity and cage effects, but also a few properties distinguished from those of thermal glass. These distinctive properties include the spontaneous formation of micro-domains of aligned cells with collective motion, the appearance of an unusual signal in the dynamic susceptibility, and the dynamic slowdown with a density dependence generally forbidden for thermal systems. Our results are expected to capture general characteristics of such active rod glass, which may serve as a physical mechanism underlying dense bacterial aggregates., Comment: 10+8 pages, 5+9 figures

Active matter physics has been developed with various types of self-propelled particles, including those with polar and bipolar motility and beyond. However, the bipolar motions experimentally realized so far have been either random along the axis or periodic at intrinsic frequencies. Here we report another kind of bipolar active particles, whose periodic bipolar self-propulsion is set externally at a controllable frequency. We used Quincke rollers -- dielectric particles suspended in a conducting liquid driven by an electric field -- under an AC electric field instead of the usually used DC field. Reciprocating motion of a single particle at the external frequency was observed experimentally and characterized theoretically as stable periodic motion. Experimentally, we observed not only the reciprocating motion but also non-trivial active Brownian particle (ABP)-like persistent motion in a long time scale. This resulted in a Lorentzian spectrum around zero frequency, which is not accounted for by a simple extension of the conventional model of Quincke rollers to the AC field. It was found that ABP-like motion can be reproduced by considering the top-bottom asymmetry in the experimental system. Moreover, we found a rotational diffusion coefficient much larger than the thermal one, as also reported in previous experiments, which may have resulted from roughness of the electrode surface. We also found self-organized formation of small clusters, such as doublets and triplets, and characterized cooperative motion of particles therein. The AC Quincke rollers reported here may serve as a model experimental system of bipolar active matter, which appears to deserve further investigations., Comment: 14+5 pages, 8+3 figures, 12 videos

Topological defects -- locations of local mismatch of order -- are a universal concept playing important roles in diverse systems studied in physics and beyond, including the universe, various condensed matter systems, and recently, even life phenomena. Among these, liquid crystal has been a platform for studying topological defects via visualization, yet it has been a challenge to resolve three-dimensional structures of dynamically evolving singular topological defects. Here, we report a direct confocal observation of nematic liquid crystalline defect lines, called disclinations, relaxing from an electrically driven turbulent state. We focus in particular on reconnections, characteristic of such line defects. We find a scaling law for in-plane reconnection events, by which the distance between reconnecting disclinations decreases by the square root of time to the reconnection. Moreover, we show that apparently asymmetric dynamics of reconnecting disclinations is actually symmetric in a comoving frame, in marked contrast to the two-dimensional counterpart whose asymmetry is established. We argue, with experimental supports, that this is because of energetically favorable symmetric twist configurations that disclinations take spontaneously, thanks to the topology that allows for rotation of the winding axis. Our work illustrates a general mechanism of such spontaneous symmetry restoring that may apply beyond liquid crystal, which can take place if topologically distinct asymmetric defects in lower dimensions become homeomorphic in higher dimensions and if the symmetric intermediate is energetically favorable., Comment: 7+11 pages, 4+7 figures, 4 videos

Infinitesimal perturbations in various systems showing spatiotemporal chaos (STC) evolve following the power laws of the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class. While universal properties beyond the power-law exponents, such as distributions and correlations, and their geometry dependence, are established for random growth and related KPZ systems, the validity of these findings to deterministic chaotic perturbations is unknown. Here we fill this gap between stochastic KPZ systems and deterministic STC perturbations by conducting extensive simulations of a prototypical STC system, namely the logistic coupled map lattice. We show that the perturbation interfaces, defined by the logarithm of the modulus of the perturbation vector components, exhibit the universal, geometry-dependent statistical laws of the KPZ class, despite the deterministic nature of STC. We demonstrate that KPZ statistics for three established geometries arise for different initial profiles of the perturbation, namely point (local), uniform, and "pseudo-stationary" initial perturbations, the last being the statistically stationary state of KPZ interfaces given independently of the Lyapunov vector. This geometry dependence lasts until the KPZ correlation length becomes comparable to the system size. Thereafter, perturbation vectors converge to the unique Lyapunov vector, showing characteristic meandering, coalescence, and annihilation of borders of piece-wise regions that remain different from the Lyapunov vector. Our work implies that the KPZ universality for stochastic systems generally characterizes deterministic STC perturbations, providing new insights for STC, such as the universal dependence on initial perturbation and beyond., Comment: 7+4 pages, 4+6 figures This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. This article appeared in Chaos 31, 111103 (2021) and may be found at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0071658

The two-dimensional (2d) Ising model is the statistical physics textbook example for phase transitions and their kinetics. Quenched through the Curie point with Glauber rates, the late-time description of the ferromagnetic domain coarsening finds its place at the scalar sector of the Allen-Cahn (Model A) class. Resisting exact results sought since Lifshitz's account in 1962, central quantities in 2d Model A $-$ most scaling exponents and correlation functions $-$ remain known up to approximate theories whose disparate outcomes urge experimental assessment. Here, we perform such assessment from a comprehensive study of the coarsening of 2d twisted nematic liquid crystals whose kinetics is induced by a super-fast switching from a spatiotemporally chaotic state to a two-phase concurrent, equilibrium one. Tracking the dynamics via optical microscopy, we firstly show the sharp evidence of well-established Model A aspects, such as the dynamic exponent $z=2$ and the dynamic scaling hypothesis, to then move forward. We confirm the Bray-Humayun theory for Porod's regime describing intradomain length scales of spatial correlators, and show that their nontrivial decay beyond that regime is captured in a free-from-parameter fashion by Gaussian theories. These paradigmatic theories, however, do not perform well for time-related Model A statistics. We reveal that the collapsed form of two-time correlators is best accounted for by the local scaling invariance theory, along with the Fisher-Huse conjecture. We also suggest the true value for the local persistence exponent, in disfavour of Gaussian models, and extract a universal fractal dimension for the morphology of persistence clusters that is notably close to the golden ratio. Given its accuracy and possibilities, this experimental setup may work as a prototype to address universality issues in the realm of nonequilibrium systems., Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables

Rod-shaped bacteria, such as Escherichia coli, commonly live forming mounded colonies. They initially grow two-dimensionally on a surface and finally achieve three-dimensional growth. While it was recently reported that three-dimensional growth is promoted by topological defects of winding number $+1/2$ in populations of motile bacteria, how cellular alignment plays a role in non-motile cases is largely unknown. Here, we investigate the relevance of topological defects in colony formation processes of non-motile E. coli populations, and found that both $\pm 1/2$ topological defects contribute to the three-dimensional growth. Analyzing the cell flow in the bottom layer of the colony, we observe that $+1/2$ defects attract cells and $-1/2$ defects repel cells, in agreement with previous studies on motile cells, in the initial stage of the colony growth. However, later, cells gradually flow toward $-1/2$ defects as well, exhibiting a sharp contrast to the existing knowledge. By investigating three-dimensional cell orientations by confocal microscopy, we find strong vertical tilting of cells near the defects. Crucially, this leads to the emergence of a polar order in the otherwise nematic two-dimensional cell orientation. We extend the theory of active nematics by incorporating this polar order and the vertical tilting, which successfully explains the influx toward $-1/2$ defects in terms of a polarity-induced force. Our work reveals that three-dimensional cell orientations may result in drastic changes in properties of active nematics, especially those of topological defects, which may be generically relevant in active matter systems driven by cellular growth instead of self-propulsion., Comment: 13+13 pages, 4+10 figures

The nonequilibrium steady state of the one-dimensional (1D) Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class is studied in-depth by exact solutions, yet no direct experimental evidence of its characteristic statistical properties has been reported so far. This is arguably because, for an infinitely large system, infinitely long time is needed to reach such a stationary state and also to converge to the predicted universal behavior. Here we circumvent this problem in the experimental system of growing liquid-crystal turbulence, by generating an initial condition that possesses a long-range property expected for the KPZ stationary state. The resulting interface fluctuations clearly show characteristic properties of the 1D stationary KPZ interfaces, including the convergence to the Baik-Rains distribution. We also identify finite-time corrections to the KPZ scaling laws, which turn out to play a major role in the direct test of the stationary KPZ interfaces. This paves the way to explore unsolved properties of the stationary KPZ interfaces experimentally, making possible connections to nonlinear fluctuating hydrodynamics and quantum spin chains as recent studies unveiled relation to the stationary KPZ., Comment: 6+3 pages, 4+3 figures; published version

In stable environments, cell size fluctuations are thought to be governed by simple physical principles, as suggested by recent findings of scaling properties. Here, by developing a microfluidic device and using E. coli, we investigate the response of cell size fluctuations against starvation. By abruptly switching to non-nutritious medium, we find that the cell size distribution changes but satisfies scale invariance: the rescaled distribution is kept unchanged and determined by the growth condition before starvation. These findings are underpinned by a model based on cell growth and cell cycle. Further, we numerically determine the range of validity of the scale invariance over various characteristic times of the starvation process, and find the violation of the scale invariance for slow starvation. Our results, combined with theoretical arguments, suggest the relevance of the multifork replication, which helps retaining information of cell cycle states and may thus result in the scale invariance., Comment: 15+23 pages, 5+11 figures and 2 tables

We study fluctuations of interfaces in the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class with curved initial conditions. By simulations of a cluster growth model and experiments of liquid-crystal turbulence, we determine the universal scaling functions that describe the height distribution and the spatial correlation of the interfaces growing outward from a ring. The scaling functions, controlled by a single dimensionless time parameter, show crossover from the statistical properties of the flat interfaces to those of the circular interfaces. Moreover, employing the KPZ variational formula to describe the case of the ring initial condition, we find that the formula, which we numerically evaluate, reproduces the numerical and experimental results precisely without adjustable parameters. This demonstrates that precise numerical evaluation of the variational formula is possible at all, and underlines the practical importance of the formula, which is able to predict the one-point distribution of KPZ interfaces for general initial conditions., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures including Supplemental Material

Despite the prominent importance of the Lyapunov exponents for characterizing chaos, it still remains a challenge to measure them for large experimental systems, mainly because of the lack of recurrences in time series analysis. Here we develop a method to overcome this difficulty, valid for highly symmetric systems such as systems with global coupling for which the dimensionality of recurrence analysis can be reduced drastically. We test our method numerically with two globally coupled systems, namely, logistic maps and limit-cycle oscillators with global coupling. The evaluated exponent values are successfully compared with the true ones obtained by the standard numerical method. We also describe a few techniques to improve the accuracy of the proposed method., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

We study competition of two non-motile bacterial strains in a three-dimensional channel numerically, and analyze how their configuration evolves in space and time. We construct a lattice model that takes into account self-replication, mutation, and killing of bacteria. When mutation is not significant, the two strains segregate and form stripe patterns along the channel. The formed lanes are gradually rearranged, with increasing length scales in the two-dimensional cross-sectional plane. We characterize it in terms of coarsening and phase ordering in statistical physics. In particular, for the simple model without mutation and killing, we find logarithmically slow coarsening, which is characteristic of the two-dimensional voter model. With mutation and killing, we find a phase transition from a monopolistic phase, in which lanes are formed and coarsened until the system is eventually dominated by one of the two strains, to an equally mixed and disordered phase without lane structure. Critical behavior at the transition point is also studied and compared with the generalized voter class and the Ising class. These results are accounted for by continuum equations, obtained by applying a mean field approximation along the channel axis. Our findings indicate relevance of critical coarsening of two-dimensional systems in the problem of bacterial competition within anisotropic three-dimensional geometry., Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures

We study height fluctuations of interfaces in the $(1+1)$-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) class, growing at different speeds in the left half and the right half of space. Carrying out simulations of the discrete polynuclear growth model with two different growth rates, combined with the standard setting for the droplet, flat, and stationary geometries, we find that the fluctuation properties at and near the boundary are described by the KPZ half-space problem developed in the theoretical literature. In particular, in the droplet case, the distribution at the boundary is given by the largest-eigenvalue distribution of random matrices in the Gaussian symplectic ensemble, often called the GSE Tracy-Widom distribution. We also characterize crossover from the full-space statistics to the half-space one, which arises when the difference between the two growth speeds is small., Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures

The Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class describes a broad range of non-equilibrium fluctuations, including those of growing interfaces, directed polymers and particle transport, to name but a few. Since the year 2000, our understanding of the one-dimensional KPZ class has been completely renewed by mathematical physics approaches based on exact solutions. Mathematical physics has played a central role since then, leading to a myriad of new developments, but their implications are clearly not limited to mathematics -- as a matter of fact, it can also be studied experimentally. The aim of these lecture notes is to provide an introduction to the field that is accessible to non-specialists, reviewing basic properties of the KPZ class and highlighting main physical outcomes of mathematical developments since the year 2000. It is written in a brief and self-contained manner, with emphasis put on physical intuitions and implications, while only a small (and mostly not the latest) fraction of mathematical developments could be covered. Liquid-crystal experiments by the author and coworkers are also reviewed., Comment: 34 pages, 16 figures, 1 table; lecture notes prepared for Summer School "Fundamental Problems in Statistical Physics XIV" (16-29 July 2017, Bruneck, Italy); descriptions on growth under quenched noise are significantly updated in v2; otherwise most changes are stylistic and made for better accessibility to non-specialists

The power spectrum of interface fluctuations in the $(1+1)$-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class is studied both experimentally and numerically. The $1/f^\alpha$-type spectrum is found and characterized through a set of "critical exponents" for the power spectrum. The recently formulated "aging Wiener-Khinchin theorem" accounts for the observed exponents. Interestingly, the $1/f^\alpha$ spectrum in the KPZ class turns out to contain information on a universal distribution function characterizing the asymptotic state of the KPZ interfaces, namely the Baik-Rains universal variance. It is indeed observed in the presented data, both experimental and numerical, and for both circular and flat interfaces, in the long time limit., Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures

Understanding possible universal properties for systems far from equilibrium is much less developed than for their equilibrium counterparts and poses a major challenge to present day statistical physics. The study of aging properties, and how the memory of the past is conserved by the time evolution in presence of noise is a crucial facet of the problem. Recently, very robust universal properties were shown to arise in one-dimensional growth processes with local stochastic rules,leading to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class. Yet it has remained essentially unknown how fluctuations in these systems correlate at different times. Here we derive quantitative predictions for the universal form of the two-time aging dynamics of growing interfaces, which, moreover, turns out to exhibit a surprising breaking of ergodicity. We provide corroborating experimental observations on a turbulent liquid crystal system, which demonstrates universality. This may give insight into memory effects in a broader class of far-from-equilibrium systems., Comment: 6 pages + supplemental material (5 pages). 9 figures

We study the $(1+1)$-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) interfaces growing inward from ring-shaped initial conditions, experimentally and numerically, using growth of a turbulent state in liquid-crystal electroconvection and an off-lattice Eden model, respectively. To realize the ring initial condition experimentally, we introduce a holography-based technique that allows us to design the initial condition arbitrarily. Then, we find that fluctuation properties of ingrowing circular interfaces are distinct from those for the curved or circular KPZ subclass and, instead, are characterized by the flat subclass. More precisely, we find an asymptotic approach to the Tracy-Widom distribution for the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble and the $\text{Airy}_1$ spatial correlation, as long as time is much shorter than the characteristic time determined by the initial curvature. Near this characteristic time, deviation from the flat KPZ subclass is found, which can be explained in terms of the correlation length and the circumference. Our results indicate that the sign of the initial curvature has a crucial role in determining the universal distribution and correlation functions of the KPZ class., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

Turbulence is one of the most prototypical phenomena of systems driven out of equilibrium. While turbulence has been studied mainly with classical fluids like water, considerable attention is now drawn to quantum turbulence (QT), observed in quantum fluids such as superfluid helium and Bose-Einstein condensates. A distinct feature of QT is that it consists of quantum vortices, by which turbulent circulation is quantized. Yet, under strong forcing, characteristic properties of developed classical turbulence such as Kolmogorov's law have also been identified in QT. Here, we study the opposite limit of weak forcing, i.e., the onset of QT, numerically, and find another set of universal scaling laws known for classical non-equilibrium systems. Specifically, we show that the transition belongs to the directed percolation universality class, known to arise generically in transitions into an absorbing state, including transitions to classical shear-flow turbulence after very recent studies. We argue that quantum vortices play an important role in our finding., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

Tracking the sign of fluctuations governed by the $(1+1)$-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class, we show, both experimentally and numerically, that its evolution has an unexpected link to a simple stochastic model called the renewal process, studied in the context of aging and ergodicity breaking. Although KPZ and the renewal process are fundamentally different in many aspects, we find remarkable agreement in some of the time correlation properties, such as the recurrence time distributions and the persistence probability, while the two systems can be different in other properties. Moreover, we find inequivalence between long-time and ensemble averages in the fraction of time occupied by a specific sign of the KPZ-class fluctuations. The distribution of its long-time average converges to nontrivial broad functions, which are found to differ significantly from that of the renewal process, but instead be characteristic of KPZ. Thus, we obtain a new type of ergodicity breaking for such systems with many-body interactions. Our analysis also detects qualitative differences in time-correlation properties of circular and flat KPZ-class interfaces, which were suggested from previous experiments and simulations but still remain theoretically unexplained., Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures; major change from v1 in the analysis of generalized persistence probability. J. Stat. Phys. (published online, 2016)

The stochastic partial differential equation proposed nearly three decades ago by Kardar, Parisi and Zhang (KPZ) continues to inspire, intrigue and confound its many admirers. Here, we i) pay debts to heroic predecessors, ii) highlight additional, experimentally relevant aspects of the recently solved 1+1 KPZ problem, iii) use an expanding substrates formalism to gain access to the 3d radial KPZ equation and, lastly, iv) examining extremal paths on disordered hierarchical lattices, set our gaze upon the fate of $d$=$\infty$ KPZ. Clearly, there remains ample unexplored territory within the realm of KPZ and, for the hearty, much work to be done, especially in higher dimensions, where numerical and renormalization group methods are providing a deeper understanding of this iconic equation., Comment: Mini-review, mixed w/ new results. 18 pages, 6 figures. Journal of Statistical Physics, in press; v2: corrects typos, adds refs

This is a brief survey of recent experimental studies on out-of-equilibrium scaling laws, focusing on two prominent situations where non-trivial universality classes have been identified theoretically: absorbing-state phase transitions and growing interfaces. First the article summarizes main results obtained for electrically-driven turbulent liquid crystal, which exhibited the scaling laws for the directed percolation class at the transition between two turbulent regimes, and those for the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang class in the supercritical phase where one turbulent regime invades the other. Other experimental investigations on these universality classes and related situations are then overviewed and discussed. Some remarks on analyses of these scaling laws are also given from the practical viewpoints., Comment: Proceedings article for the STATPHYS25 conference; 26 pages, 6 figures; (v2) addition of section 3.2.4 and other minor changes; (v3) correction in section 3.2.4; (v4) typos corrected and other stylistic changes; accepted in J. Stat. Mech

This Letter reports on how the interfaces in the (1+1)-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) class undergo, in the course of time, a transition from the flat, growing regime to the stationary one. Simulations of the polynuclear growth model and experiments on turbulent liquid crystal reveal universal functions of the KPZ class governing this transition, which connect the distribution and correlation functions for the growing and stationary regimes. This in particular shows how interfaces realized in experiments and simulations actually approach the stationary regime, which is never attained unless a stationary interface is artificially given as an initial condition., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures; improved introduction and other minor/stylistic changes (v2)

We show, using covariant Lyapunov vectors in addition to standard Lyapunov analysis, that there exists a set of collective Lyapunov modes in large chaotic systems exhibiting collective dynamics. Associated with delocalized Lyapunov vectors, they act collectively on the trajectory and hence characterize the instability of its collective dynamics. We further develop, for globally-coupled systems, a connection between these collective modes and the Lyapunov modes in the corresponding Perron-Frobenius equation. We thereby address the fundamental question of the effective dimension of collective dynamics and discuss the extensivity of chaos in presence of collective dynamics., Comment: 24 pages, 15 figures; display error correction of Fig.11 and other minor changes (v2)

Scale-invariant fluctuations of growing interfaces are studied for circular clusters of an off-lattice variant of the Eden model, which belongs to the (1+1)-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class. Statistical properties of the height (radius) fluctuations are numerically determined and compared with the recent theoretical developments as well as the author's experimental result on growing interfaces in turbulent liquid crystal [K. A. Takeuchi and M. Sano, arXiv:1203.2530]. We focus in particular on analytically unsolved properties such as the temporal correlation function and the persistence probability in space and time. Good agreement with the experiment is found in characteristic quantities for them, which implies that the geometry-dependent universality of the KPZ class holds here as well, but otherwise a few dissimilarities are also found. Finite-time corrections in the cumulants of the distribution are also studied and shown to decay as $t^{-2/3}$ for the mean, in contrast to $t^{-1/3}$ reported for all the previously known cases., Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures; reference updated (v2,v3); minor changes in text (v3)

We provide a comprehensive report on scale-invariant fluctuations of growing interfaces in liquid-crystal turbulence, for which we recently found evidence that they belong to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class for 1+1 dimensions [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 230601 (2010); Sci. Rep. 1, 34 (2011)]. Here we investigate both circular and flat interfaces and report their statistics in detail. First we demonstrate that their fluctuations show not only the KPZ scaling exponents but beyond: they asymptotically share even the precise forms of the distribution function and the spatial correlation function in common with solvable models of the KPZ class, demonstrating also an intimate relation to random matrix theory. We then determine other statistical properties for which no exact theoretical predictions were made, in particular the temporal correlation function and the persistence probabilities. Experimental results on finite-time effects and extreme-value statistics are also presented. Throughout the paper, emphasis is put on how the universal statistical properties depend on the global geometry of the interfaces, i.e., whether the interfaces are circular or flat. We thereby corroborate the powerful yet geometry-dependent universality of the KPZ class, which governs growing interfaces driven out of equilibrium., Comment: 31 pages, 21 figures, 1 table; references updated (v2,v3); Fig.19 updated & minor changes in text (v3); final version (v4); J. Stat. Phys. Online First (2012)

We study the dynamical properties of the canonical ordered phase of the Hamiltonian mean-field (HMF) model, in which $N$ particles, globally-coupled via pairwise attractive interactions, form a rotating cluster. Using a combination of numerical and analytical arguments, we first show that the largest Lyapunov exponent remains strictly positive in the infinite-size limit, converging to its asymptotic value with $1/\ln N$ corrections. We then elucidate the scaling laws ruling the behavior of this asymptotic value in the critical region separating the ordered, clustered phase and the disordered phase present at high energy densities. We also show that the full spectrum of Lyapunov exponents consists of a bulk component converging to the (zero) value taken by a test oscillator forced by the mean field, plus subextensive bands of ${\cal O}(\ln N)$ exponents taking finite values. We finally investigate the robustness of these results by studying a "2D" extension of the HMF model where each particle is endowed with 4 degrees of freedom, thus allowing the emergence of chaos at the level of single particle. Altogether, these results illustrate the subtle effects of global (or long-range) coupling, and the importance of the order in which the infinite-time and infinite-size limits are taken: for an infinite-size HMF system represented by the Vlasov equation, no chaos is present, while chaos exists and subsists for any finite system size.

Stochastic motion of a point -- known as Brownian motion -- has many successful applications in science, thanks to its scale invariance and consequent universal features such as Gaussian fluctuations. In contrast, the stochastic motion of a line, though it is also scale-invariant and arises in nature as various types of interface growth, is far less understood. The two major missing ingredients are: an experiment that allows a quantitative comparison with theory and an analytic solution of the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation, a prototypical equation for describing growing interfaces. Here we solve both problems, showing unprecedented universality beyond the scaling laws. We investigate growing interfaces of liquid-crystal turbulence and find not only universal scaling, but universal distributions of interface positions. They obey the largest-eigenvalue distributions of random matrices and depend on whether the interface is curved or flat, albeit universal in each case. Our exact solution of the KPZ equation provides theoretical explanations., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, supplementary information available on Journal page

We show, using covariant Lyapunov vectors, that the tangent space of spatially-extended dissipative systems is split into two hyperbolically decoupled subspaces: one comprising a finite number of frequently entangled "physical" modes, which carry the physically relevant information of the trajectory, and a residual set of strongly decaying "spurious" modes. The decoupling of the physical and spurious subspaces is defined by the absence of tangencies between them and found to take place generally; we find evidence in partial differential equations in one and two spatial dimensions and even in lattices of coupled maps or oscillators. We conjecture that the physical modes may constitute a local linear description of the inertial manifold at any point in the global attractor., Comment: 21 pages, 30 figures

Using a combination of analytical and numerical techniques, we show that chaos in globally-coupled identical dynamical systems, be they dissipative or Hamiltonian, is both extensive and sub-extensive: their spectrum of Lyapunov exponents is asymptotically flat (thus extensive) at the value $\lambda_0$ given by a single unit forced by the mean-field, but sandwiched between sub-extensive bands containing typically $\mathcal{O}(\log N)$ exponents whose values vary as $\lambda \simeq \lambda_\infty + c/\log N$ with $\lambda_\infty \neq \lambda_0$., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; minor changes made and 2 figure panels added

We investigate growing interfaces of topological-defect turbulence in the electroconvection of nematic liquid crystals. The interfaces exhibit self-affine roughening characterized by both spatial and temporal scaling laws of the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang theory in 1+1 dimensions. Moreover, we reveal that the distribution and the two-point correlation of the interface fluctuations are universal ones governed by the largest eigenvalue of random matrices. This provides quantitative experimental evidence of the universality prescribing detailed information of scale-invariant fluctuations., Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures; minor changes made; note added

We show, using generic globally-coupled systems, that the collective dynamics of large chaotic systems is encoded in their Lyapunov spectra: most modes are typically localized on a few degrees of freedom, but some are delocalized, acting collectively on the trajectory. For globally-coupled maps, we show moreover a quantitative correspondence between the collective modes and some of the so-called Perron-Frobenius dynamics. Our results imply that the conventional definition of extensivity must be changed as soon as collective dynamics sets in., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; small changes, mostly stylistic, made in v2

This is a comprehensive report on the phase transition between two turbulent states of electroconvection in nematic liquid crystals, which was recently found by the authors to be in the directed percolation (DP) universality class [K. A. Takeuchi et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 234503 (2007)]. We further investigate both static and dynamic critical behavior of this phase transition, measuring a total of 12 critical exponents, 5 scaling functions, and 8 scaling relations, all in full agreement with those characterizing the DP class in 2+1 dimensions. Developing an experimental technique to create a seed of topological-defect turbulence by pulse laser, we confirm in particular the rapidity symmetry, which is a basic but nontrivial consequence of the field-theoretic approach to DP. This provides the first clear experimental realization of this outstanding, truly out-of-equilibrium universality class, dominating most phase transitions into an absorbing state., Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables

We show, using covariant Lyapunov vectors, that the chaotic solutions of spatially extended dissipative systems evolve within a manifold spanned by a finite number of physical modes hyperbolically isolated from a set of residual degrees of freedom, themselves individually isolated from each other. In the context of dissipative partial differential equations, our results imply that a faithful numerical integration needs to incorporate at least all physical modes and that increasing the resolution merely increases the number of isolated modes., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

Models undergoing a phase transition to an absorbing state weakly broken by the addition of a very low spontaneous nucleation rate are shown to exhibit hysteresis loops whose width $\Delta\lambda$ depends algebraically on the ramp rate $r$. Analytical arguments and numerical simulations show that $\Delta\lambda \sim r^{\kappa}$ with $\kappa = 1/(\beta'+1)$, where $\beta'$ is the critical exponent governing the survival probability of a seed near threshold. These results explain similar hysteresis scaling observed before in liquid crystal convection experiments. This phenomenon is conjectured to occur in a variety of other experimental systems., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

We experimentally investigate the critical behavior of a phase transition between two topologically different turbulent states of electrohydrodynamic convection in nematic liquid crystals. The statistical properties of the observed spatiotemporal intermittency regimes are carefully determined, yielding a complete set of static critical exponents in full agreement with those defining the directed percolation class in (2+1) dimensions. This constitutes the first clear and comprehensive experimental evidence of an absorbing phase transition in this prominent non-equilibrium universality class., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

Universality classes of Ising-like phase transitions are investigated in series of two-dimensional synchronously updated probabilistic cellular automata (PCAs), whose time evolution rules are either of Glauber type or of majority-vote type, and degrees of anisotropy are varied. Although early works showed that coupled map lattices and PCAs with synchronously updating rules belong to a universality class distinct from the Ising class, careful calculations reveal that synchronous Glauber PCAs should be categorized into the Ising class, regardless of the degree of anisotropy. Majority-vote PCAs for the system size considered yield exponents $\nu$ which are between those of the two classes, closer to the Ising value, with slight dependence on the anisotropy. The results indicate that the Ising critical behavior is robust with respect to anisotropy and synchronism for those types of non-equilibrium PCAs. There are no longer any PCAs known to belong to the non-Ising class., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, 1 table; title slightly changed, references and supplementary information added, layout changed

The thermodynamic formalism for dynamical systems with many degrees of freedom is extended to deal with time averages and fluctuations of some macroscopic quantity along typical orbits, and applied to coupled map lattices exhibiting phase transitions. Thereby, it turns out that a seed of phase transition is embedded as an anomalous distribution of unstable periodic orbits, which appears as a so-called q-phase transition in the spatio-temporal configuration space. This intimate relation between phase transitions and q-phase transitions leads to one natural way of defining transitions and their order in extended chaotic systems. Furthermore, a basis is obtained on which we can treat locally introduced control parameters as macroscopic ``temperature'' in some cases involved with phase transitions., Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures; further explanation and 2 figures are added (minor revision)