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In this work, we investigate the dynamics of a scalar field in the nonintegrable $\displaystyle \phi ^{4}$ model, restricted to the half-line. Here we consider singular solutions that interpolate the Dirichlet boundary condition $\phi(x=0,t)=H$ and their scattering with the regular kink solution. The simulations reveal a rich variety of phenomena in the field dynamics, such as the formation of a kink-antikink pair, the generation of oscillons by the boundary perturbations, and the interaction between these objects and the boundary, which causes the emergence of boundary-induced resonant scatterings (for example, oscillon-boundary bound states and kink generation by oscillon-boundary collision) founded into complex fractal structures. Linear perturbation analysis was applied to interpret some aspects of the scattering process. We detected the presence of two shape modes near the boundary. The power spectral density of the scalar field at a fixed point leads to several frequency peaks. Most of them can be explained with some interesting insights for the interaction between the scattering products and the boundary., Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures. This version accepted for publication in JHEP

We consider an extended model with two real scalar fields, $\phi(x,t)$ and $\chi(x,t)$. The first sector is controlled by the sine-Gordon superpotential, while the second field is submitted to the $\chi^4$ one. The fields mutually interact via a nontrivial coupling function $f(\chi)$ that also changes the kinematics of $\phi$. We briefly review the implementation of the Bogomol'nyi-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS) prescription. We then solve the resulting BPS equations for two different interactions $f$. The first one leads to a single kink-kink configuration, while the second one gives rise to a inhomogeneous sine-Gordon kink lattice. We study the linear stability of these new solutions, focusing on their translational modes. We also explore how the strength of the mutual interaction affects the BPS profiles. In particular, we show that a homogeneous lattice with identical kinks is attained in the regime of extremely strong interactions., Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures. Suggestions are welcome

In this paper, we present topological defects in $(1,1)$ dimensions, described by an extended nonlinear $O(3)$ sigma model. We consider spherical coordinates $(\phi,\chi)$ in the $S^2$ isotopic space and a potential $V(\phi,\chi)$. For specific forms of the potential, it is possible to apply the Bogomol'nyi method, resulting in first-order equations of motion with solutions that minimize energy. We study a model with an explicit solution for the field $\phi$ that resembles the ubiquitous sine-Gordon kink/antikink, but with an internal structure given by the field $\chi$ with a form antilump/lump that depends on a constant $C$. The soliton-antisoliton scattering process depends on $C$ and on the initial velocity of the pair. Some results are reported, such as: one-bounce scattering for $\phi$, or strong emission of radiation for $\phi$, followed by i) annihilation of $\chi$; ii) same pattern antilump-antilump or lump-antilump for $\chi$; iii) inversion antilump-antilump to lump-lump for $\chi$; iv) inversion antilump-lump to lump-antilump for $\chi$. Other findings are: v) annihilation of the pair soliton-antisoliton with the emission of scalar radiation; vi) emission of pairs of oscillations around the vacuum for $\phi$ and $\chi$. The energy density shows that the defect has an internal structure as a nested defect of an antilump inside a kink. The lump core of the defect is responsible for the emission of radiation. The changing of structure of the defects during the scattering is analyzed not only with the field profiles in the physical $(1,1)$ space, but also in the internal $S^2$ space, which gives some new insight into the process., Comment: 27 pages, 14 figures

The Yukawa coupling of fermions with a periodic bosonic background is shown to give rise to several bound states to the fermionic spectrum, with some bound states gluing together around specific energy eingenvalues as the Yukawa coupling increases. This effect induces the presence of degenerate energy states inside the fermionic gap and may be of current interest., Comment: to appear in EPJ C as a letter

The strong coupling of plasmonic resonance modes in conductive pyramidal nanoparticles leads to an increase in the density of free charges on the surface. By ensuring plasmonic coupling in the pyramidal nanoparticle lattice, the achieved field intensity is potentiated. At the same time, a strong coupling between resonant modes is guaranteed, which results in the formation of new hybrid modes. In this manuscript, we demonstrated a tunable double anticrossing interaction that results from the interaction between two Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance (LSPR) modes and a Surface Plasmon Polariton (SPP) wave. The tuning is done as a function of the variation of the angle of incidence of the input electric field. From the double anticrossing, an increase in field intensity in a blue-shifted LSPR mode located in the red wavelength region is observed. This demonstrates that at certain angles of incidence, the intensity field obtained is strongly favored, which would be beneficial for applications such as Surface Enhancement Raman Spectroscopy (SERS). Nanoparticle-based lattices have been widely used for biosensor applications. However, one of the major limitations of this type of device is the low tolerance to high concentrations of biomolecules, which significantly affects their performance. According to the studies carried out for this manuscript, it was demonstrated that the implemented geometry allows for the observation of an LSPR mode, which is responsible for the control and synchronization of other perceived resonances. This mode remains almost invariant when subjected to structural variations or changes in the angle of incidence of the electric field. These characteristics eliminate the limitation mentioned above, allowing for sensitivities 10^3 times higher than those achieved in conventional systems based on LSPR used to detect P. brasiliensis antigen., Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures

We examine the oscillon decay in a model with a single scalar field and two asymmetric fundamental states. Specifically, we verify how the evolution of an initially excited oscillon leads to the formation of antikink-kink pairs in the presence of a centered long-lived pulse. In such a context, the magnitude of the original perturbation stands for the most important factor influencing the process. For intermediary values of this magnitude, we find a transitory behavior which suggests that the energy exchange between translational and vibrational modes begins to play an important role in the overall evolution. As the magnitude increases, the centered pulse intermediates an interaction between the inner structures which compose the pairs whose behavior mimics that of a standard antikink-kink collision and therefore reinforces the role played by the energy transfer mechanism. We depict the resulting resonant structure and note that it mimics that of an usual kink-antikink scattering. We also reproduce some of our results now via an initial lumplike perturbation proposed as a kink-antikink pair. For different values of width, {\it{an almost pure}} antikink-kink pair escapes to the infinity after multiple bounces., Comment: We have added a new section and figures

Higher-order scalar field models in two dimensions, including the $\phi^8$ model, have been researched. It has been shown that for some special cases of the minima positions of the potential, the explicit kink solutions can be found. However, in physical applications, it is very important to know all the explicit solutions of a model for any minima position. In the present study, with the help of some deformation functions, we have shown that higher-order scalar field theories can be obtained with explicit kinks. In particular, we introduced two deformation functions that, when applied to the well known $\phi^4$ and $\phi^6$ models, produce modified $\phi^8$ and $\phi^{10}$ models, respectively, with all their explicit kink-like solutions which depend on a single parameter. Since this parameter controls the position of the minima of the potential, we have found interesting new solutions in many distinct cases. We have also studied the kink mass, the behavior of the excitation spectra and several kink-antikink collisions for these two new modified models. The collision outcome is determined by the initial configuration, specifically the sequence in which the kink-antikink and antikink-kink pairings emerge. Another interesting finding is the suppression of resonance windows, which may be explained by the presence of a set of internal modes in the model., Comment: Version accepted for publication

We investigate kink-antikink collisions in a model characterized by two scalar fields in the presence of geometric constrictions. The model includes an auxiliary function that modifies the kinematics associated with one of the two fields. An important fact is that one of the fields can be solved independently, being responsible for changing the internal structure of the second one. We performed several collisions and observed the presence of resonance windows for small values of the parameters. Furthermore, we have been able to show the alternation between the appearance of oscillating pulses, as well as the annihilation and formation of kink-antikink pairs when the geometric constriction is more pronounced. The study of kink dynamics in models with geometric constrictions is connected with issues of interest such as domain wall formation and magnetization at the manometric scale., Comment: 30 pages, 17 figures, final version to be published in JHEP

Two hyperbolic-deformed field theoretic models are discussed. In both of them, due to the effect of specific deformation function on the well known $\varphi^4$ and $\varphi^6$ models, their internal structure may change significantly. Unlike the $\varphi^4$ kinks solutions, which has only one internal mode in addition to its translational mode, the kinks of the hyperbolic-deformed $\varphi^4$ model can have several internal modes. Moreover, the deformation on the $\varphi^6$ model has other interesting features, because the kinks of the $\varphi^6$ model have only a zero mode and the deformation may cause the appearance of internal mode for both kink and antikink. The presence of the new internal modes modify the collisions which we explore in the present work. The deformation relies on a real parameter, which controls the number of internal modes, and we also study how the deformation parameter alter the mass of the kinks and the critical velocities involved in the collisions., Comment: Accepted for publication in Chaos, Solitons and Fractals

This work deals with bifurcation and the chaotic behavior in one dimensional chains of small particles. We consider two distinct possibilities, one where the particles are modeled by a fourth-order potential which was already studied. We revisit this system and bring novelties concerning the presence of the three-armed star behavior and the study of the corresponding Lyapunov exponent. The other system is new, and there the particles are more involved and modeled by an eighth-order potential. We investigate this new system within the same approach, emphasizing the behavior of the orbits, the bifurcation profile and the corresponding Lyapunov exponent., Comment: Accepted for publication in Chaos, Solitons and Fractals

In this paper we analyze the scattering process in a two-field model in $(1+1)$-dimensions, with the special property to have several topological solutions: i) one with higher rest mass, characterized by a nested defect (lump inside a kink), and ii) four others having lower rest mass, degenerated, and characterized by a kink inside kink. We investigate kink-antikink symmetric scattering, where the kink and antikink have higher rest mass and the same initial velocity modulus $v$. The output of scattering presents a wide range of behaviors, such as annihilation of the kink-antikink pair, the emission of radiation jets, the generation of oscillating pulses and the change of the topological sector. We show that the changing of the topological sector is favored, and only two of the four sectors are possible as outcomes. Moreover, despite the degeneracy in energy, the distribution of the final states is asymmetric in the phase space, being an effect of the presence of vibrational states., Comment: published by International Journal of Modern Physics A

In this work we consider the scalar field model with a false vacuum proposed by A. T. Avelar, D. Bazeia, L. Losano and R. Menezes, Eur. Phys. J. C 55, 133-143 (2008). The model depends on a parameter $s>0$. The model has unstable nontopological lump solutions with a bell shape for small $s$, acquiring a flat plateau around the maximum for large $s$. For $s\to\infty$ the $\phi^4$ model is recovered. We show that for $s\gtrsim 2$ the lump is metastable with the only negative mode very close to zero. Metastable lumps can propagate and survive long enough to produce dynamical effects. Due to their simplicity, they can be an alternative to the procedure of stabilization which requires, for instance, a complex scalar field to construct nontopological solitons. We study lump-lump collisions in this model, describing the main characteristics of the scattering products at their dependence on $s$ and the initial velocity modulus of each lump.

In this work we consider model of asymmetric kinks, where the behavior of the solution in one side is different from the other side. Also, the models depend of an integer $n$ and, with the increase of $n$, the constructed kink assumes a hybrid character: a compactlike profile on one side and a kinklike profile on the other side. We investigate numerically the kink-antikink and antikink-kink dynamics, with the aim to understand the effect of the transition of the usual kink to the semi-compacton structure. The kink-antikink process shows the formation of one-bounce windows for small values of $n$. The increase of $n$ favors the breaking this structure and the appearance of oscillatory modes. For antikink-kink collisions we report the appearance of two-bounce windows for small values of the parameter. We also found an intricate structure of two-oscillation windows., Comment: 25 pages, 19 figures. v3: updated to match the published version

We study kink-antikink collisions in a particular case of the double sine-Gordon model depending on only one parameter $r$. The scattering process of large kink-antikink shows the changing of the topological sector. For some parameter intervals we observed two connected effects: the production of up to five antikink-kink pairs and up to three solitary oscillations. The scattering process for small kink-antikink has several possibilities: the changing of the topological sector, one-bounce collision, two-bounce collision, or formation of a bion state. In particular, we observed for small values of $r$ and velocities, the formation of false two-bounce windows and the suppression of true two-bounce windows, despite the presence of an internal shape mode., Comment: 25 pages, 36 figures, v2: significant extra material, new figures and references added

Molecular and atomic imaging required the development of electron and scanning probe microscopies to surpass the physical limits dictated by diffraction. Nano-infrared experiments and pico-cavity tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy imaging later demonstrated that radiation in the visible range can surpass this limit by using scanning probe tips to access the near-field regime. Here we show that ultimate resolution can be obtained by using scanning microwave imaging microscopy to reveal structures with feature sizes down to 1~nm using a radiation of 0.1~m in wavelength. As a test material we use twisted bilayer graphene, which is not only a very important recent topic due to the discovery of correlated electron effects such as superconductivity, but also because it provides a sample where we can systematically tune a superstructure Moir\'e patterns modulation from below one up to tens of nanometers. By analyzing the tip-sample distance dynamics, we demonstrate that this ultimate 10$^8$ probe-to-pattern resolution can be achieved by using liquid immersion microscopy concepts and exquisite force control exerted on nanoscale water menisci., Comment: suppl. mat included, movies not included and available upon request by email to gilberto@dcc.ufmg.br

A low twist angle between the two stacked crystal networks in bilayer graphene enables self-organized lattice reconstruction with the formation of a periodic domain. This superlattice modulates the vibrational and electronic structures, imposing new rules for electron-phonon coupling and the eventual observation of strong correlation and superconductivity. Direct optical images of the crystal superlattice in reconstructed twisted bilayer graphene are reported here, generated by the inelastic scattering of light in a nano-Raman spectroscope. The observation of the crystallographic structure with visible light is made possible due to lattice dynamics localization, the images resembling spectral variations caused by the presence of strain solitons and topological points. The results are rationalized by a nearly-free-phonon model and electronic calculations that highlight the relevance of solitons and topological points, particularly pronounced for structures with small twist angles. We anticipate our discovery to play a role in understanding Jahn-Teller effects and electronic Cooper pairing, among many other important phonon-related effects, and it may be useful for characterizing devices in the most prominent platform for the field of twistronics., Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures

In this work we examine kink-antikink collisions in two distinct hyperbolic models. The models depend on a deformation parameter, which controls two main characteristics of the potential with two degenerate minima: the height of the barrier and the values of the minima. In particular, the rest mass of the kinks decreases monotonically as the deformation parameter increases, and we identify the appearance of a gradual suppression of two bounce windows in the kink scattering and the production of long lived oscillons. The two effects are reported in connection to the presence of more than one vibrational state in the stability potential., Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures

In this work we study kink-antikink and antikink-kink collisions in hyperbolic models of fourth and sixth order. We compared the patterns of scattering with known results from polynomial models of the same order. The hyperbolic models considered here tend to the polynomial $\phi^4$ and $\phi^6$ models in the limit of small values of the scalar field. We show that kinks and antikinks that interact hyperbolically with fourth order differ sensibly from those governed by the polynomial $\phi^4$ model. The increasing of the order of interaction to the sixth order shows that the hyperbolic and polynomial models give intricate structures of scattering that differ only slightly. The dependence on the order of interaction are related to some characteristics of the models such as the potential of perturbations and the number of vibrational modes., Comment: 17 pages, 15 figures

Contouring of organs at risk is an important but time consuming part of radiotherapy treatment planning. Several authors proposed methods for automatic delineation but the clinical experts eye remains the gold standard method. In this paper, we present a totally visual software for automated delineation of the femural head. The software was successfully characterized in pelvic CT Scan of prostate patients (n=11). The automatic delineation was compared with manual and approved delineation through blind test evaluated by a panel of seniors radiation oncologists (n=9). Clinical experts evaluated that no any contouring correction were need in 77.8% and 67.8% of manual and automatic delineation respectively. Our results show that the software is robust, the automated delineation was reproducible in all patient, and its performance was similar to manually delineation.

We study the non-integrable $\phi^{6}$ model on the half-line. The model has two topological sectors. We chose solutions from just one topological sector to fix the initial conditions. The scalar field satisfies a Neumann boundary condition $\phi_{x}\left(0,t\right)=H$. We study the scattering of a kink (antikinks) with all possible regular and stable boundaries. When $H=0$ the results are the same observed for scattering for the same model in the full line. With the increasing of $H$, sensible modifications appear in the dynamics with of the defect with several possibilities for the output depending on the initial velocity and the boundary. Our results are confronted with the topological structure and linear stability analysis of kink, antikink and boundary solutions., Comment: 32 pages, 18 figures. v2: significant extra material and new figures

In this work we consider a model where the potential has two topological sectors connecting three adjacent minima, as occurs with the $\phi^6$ model. In each topological sector, the potential is symmetric around the local maximum. For $\phi>0$ there is a linear map between the model and the $\lambda\phi^4$ model. For $\phi<0$ the potential is reflected. Linear stability analysis of kink and antikink lead to discrete and continuum modes related by a linear coordinate transformation to those known analytically for the $\lambda\phi^4$ model. Fixing one topological sector, the structure of antikink-kink scattering is related to the observed in the $\lambda\phi^4$ model. For kink-antikink collisions a new structure of bounce windows appear. Depending on the initial velocity, one can have oscillations of the scalar field at the center of mass even for one bounce, or a change of topological sector. We also found a structure of one-bounce, with secondary windows corresponding to the changing of the topological sector accumulating close to each one-bounce windows. The kink-kink collisions are characterized by a repulsive interaction and there is no possibility of forming a bound state., Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures. v2: significant extra material and new figures

As file systems are increasingly being deployed on ever larger systems with many cores and multi-gigabytes of memory, scaling the internal data structures of file systems has taken greater importance and urgency. A doubly-linked list is a simple and very commonly used data structure in file systems but it is not very friendly to multi-threaded use. While special cases of lists, such as queues and stacks, have lock-free versions that scale reasonably well, the general form of a doubly-linked list offers no such solution. Using a mutex to serialize all operations remains the de-facto method of maintaining a doubly linked list. This severely limits the scalability of the list and developers must resort to ad-hoc workarounds that involve using multiple smaller lists (with individual locks) and deal with the resulting complexity of the system. In this paper, we present an approach to building highly concurrent data structures, with special focus on the implementation of highly concurrent doubly-linked lists. Dubbed "advanced doubly-linked list" or "adlist" for short, our list allows iteration in any direction, and insert/delete operations over non-overlapping nodes to execute in parallel. Operations with common nodes get serialized so as to always present a locally consistent view to the callers. An adlist node needs an additional 8 bytes of space for keeping synchronization information. The Data Domain File System makes extensive use of adlists which has allowed for significant scaling of the system without sacrificing simplicity.

In this paper, we propose a new approach to building synchronization primitives, dubbed "lwlocks" (short for light-weight locks). The primitives are optimized for small memory footprint while maintaining efficient performance in low contention scenarios. A read-write lwlock occupies 4 bytes, a mutex occupies 4 bytes (2 if deadlock detection is not required), and a condition variable occupies 4 bytes. The corresponding primitives of the popular pthread library occupy 56 bytes, 40 bytes and 48 bytes respectively on the x86-64 platform. The API for lwlocks is similar to that of the pthread library but covering only the most common use cases. Lwlocks allow explicit control of queuing and scheduling decisions in contention situations and support "asynchronous" or "deferred blocking" acquisition of locks. Asynchronous locking helps in working around the constraints of lock-ordering which otherwise limits concurrency. The small footprint of lwlocks enables the construction of data structures with very fine-grained locking, which in turn is crucial for lowering contention and supporting highly concurrent access to a data structure. Currently, the Data Domain File System uses lwlocks for its in-memory inode cache as well as in a generic doubly-linked concurrent list which forms the building block for more sophisticated structures.

Perfect hash functions can potentially be used to compress data in connection with a variety of data management tasks. Though there has been considerable work on how to construct good perfect hash functions, there is a gap between theory and practice among all previous methods on minimal perfect hashing. On one side, there are good theoretical results without experimentally proven practicality for large key sets. On the other side, there are the theoretically analyzed time and space usage algorithms that assume that truly random hash functions are available for free, which is an unrealistic assumption. In this paper we attempt to bridge this gap between theory and practice, using a number of techniques from the literature to obtain a novel scheme that is theoretically well-understood and at the same time achieves an order-of-magnitude increase in performance compared to previous ``practical'' methods. This improvement comes from a combination of a novel, theoretically optimal perfect hashing scheme that greatly simplifies previous methods, and the fact that our algorithm is designed to make good use of the memory hierarchy. We demonstrate the scalability of our algorithm by considering a set of over one billion URLs from the World Wide Web of average length 64, for which we construct a minimal perfect hash function on a commodity PC in a little more than 1 hour. Our scheme produces minimal perfect hash functions using slightly more than 3 bits per key. For perfect hash functions in the range $\{0,...,2n-1\}$ the space usage drops to just over 2 bits per key (i.e., one bit more than optimal for representing the key). This is significantly below of what has been achieved previously for very large values of $n$., Comment: 12 pages