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1. Anomalous Landau quantization in intrinsic magnetic topological insulators

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40383-x  

   Chong, Su Kong; Lei, Chao; Lee, Seng Huat; Jaroszynski, Jan; Mao, Zhiqiang; MacDonald, Allan H.; Wang, Kang L. (December 2023, Nature Communications)

   Abstract The intrinsic magnetic topological insulator, Mn(Bi_1−xSb_x)₂Te₄, has been identified as a Weyl semimetal with a single pair of Weyl nodes in its spin-aligned strong-field configuration. A direct consequence of the Weyl state is the layer dependent Chern number,$$C$$ $C$. Previous reports in MnBi₂Te₄thin films have shown higher$$C$$ $C$states either by increasing the film thickness or controlling the chemical potential. A clear picture of the higher Chern states is still lacking as data interpretation is further complicated by the emergence of surface-band Landau levels under magnetic fields. Here, we report a tunable layer-dependent$$C$$ $C$ = 1 state with Sb substitution by performing a detailed analysis of the quantization states in Mn(Bi_1−xSb_x)₂Te₄dual-gated devices—consistent with calculations of the bulk Weyl point separation in the doped thin films. The observed Hall quantization plateaus for our thicker Mn(Bi_1−xSb_x)₂Te₄films under strong magnetic fields can be interpreted by a theory of surface and bulk spin-polarised Landau level spectra in thin film magnetic topological insulators. 

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2. Stability and exponential decay for magnetohydrodynamic equations

   https://doi.org/10.1017/prm.2022.23  

   Feng, Wen; Hafeez, Farzana; Wu, Jiahong; Regmi, Dipendra (April 2022, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Section A Mathematics)

   This paper focuses on a 2D magnetohydrodynamic system with only horizontal dissipation in the domain$$\Omega = \mathbb {T}\times \mathbb {R}$$with$$\mathbb {T}=[0,\,1]$$being a periodic box. The goal here is to understand the stability problem on perturbations near the background magnetic field$$(1,\,0)$$. Due to the lack of vertical dissipation, this stability problem is difficult. This paper solves the desired stability problem by simultaneously exploiting two smoothing and stabilizing mechanisms: the enhanced dissipation due to the coupling between the velocity and the magnetic fields, and the strong Poincaré type inequalities for the oscillation part of the solution, namely the difference between the solution and its horizontal average. In addition, the oscillation part of the solution is shown to converge exponentially to zero in$$H^{1}$$as$$t\to \infty$$. As a consequence, the solution converges to its horizontal average asymptotically. 

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3. A tile model of circuit topology for self-entangled biopolymers

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-35771-8  

   Flapan, Erica; Mashaghi, Alireza; Wong, Helen (December 2023, Scientific Reports)

   Abstract Building on the theory of circuit topology for intra-chain contacts in entangled proteins, we introduce tiles as a way to rigorously model local entanglements which are held in place by molecular forces. We develop operations that combine tiles so that entangled chains can be represented by algebraic expressions. Then we use our model to show that the only knot types that such entangled chains can have are$$3_1$$ $3_1$,$$4_1$$ $4_1$,$$5_1$$ $5_1$,$$5_2$$ $5_2$,$$6_1$$ $6_1$,$$6_2$$ $6_2$,$$6_3$$ $6_3$,$$7_7$$ $7_7$,$$8_{12}$$ $8_{12}$and connected sums of these knots. This includes all proteins knots that have thus far been identified. 

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4. Resistance and mobility functions for the near-contact motion of permeable particles

   https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2022.171  

   Reboucas, Rodrigo B; Loewenberg, Michael (May 2022, Journal of Fluid Mechanics)

   A lubrication analysis is presented for the resistances between permeable spherical particles in near contact,$$h_0/a\ll 1$$, where$$h_0$$is the minimum separation between the particles, and$$a=a_1 a_2/(a_1+a_2)$$is the reduced radius. Darcy's law is used to describe the flow inside the permeable particles and no-slip boundary conditions are applied at the particle surfaces. The weak permeability regime$$K=k/a^{2} \ll 1$$is considered, where$$k=\frac {1}{2}(k_1+k_2)$$is the mean permeability. Particle permeability enters the lubrication resistances through two functions of$$q=K^{-2/5}h_0/a$$, one describing axisymmetric motions, the other transverse. These functions are obtained by solving an integral equation for the pressure in the near-contact region. The set of resistance functions thus obtained provide the complete set of near-contact resistance functions for permeable spheres and match asymptotically to the standard hard-sphere resistances that describe pairwise hydrodynamic interactions away from the near-contact region. The results show that permeability removes the contact singularity for non-shearing particle motions, allowing rolling without slip and finite separation velocities between touching particles. Axisymmetric and transverse mobility functions are presented that describe relative particle motion under the action of prescribed forces and in linear flows. At contact, the axisymmetric mobility under the action of oppositely directed forces is$$U/U_0=d_0K^{2/5}$$, where$$U$$is the relative velocity,$$U_0$$is the velocity in the absence of hydrodynamic interactions and$$d_0=1.332$$. Under the action of a constant tangential force, a particle in contact with a permeable half-space rolls without slipping with velocity$$U/U_0=d_1(d_2+\log K^{-1})^{-1}$$, where$$d_1=3.125$$and$$d_2=6.666$$; in shear flow, the same expression holds with$$d_1=7.280$$. 

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5. Nonlinear electrophoretic velocity of a spherical colloidal particle

   https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2023.537  

   Cobos, Richard; Khair, Aditya S. (August 2023, Journal of Fluid Mechanics)

   Electrophoresis is the motion of a charged colloidal particle in an electrolyte under an applied electric field. The electrophoretic velocity of a spherical particle depends on the dimensionless electric field strength$$\beta =a^*e^*E_\infty ^*/k_B^*T^*$$, defined as the ratio of the product of the applied electric field magnitude$$E_\infty ^*$$and particle radius$$a^*$$, to the thermal voltage$$k_B^*T^*/e^*$$, where$$k_B^*$$is Boltzmann's constant,$$T^*$$is the absolute temperature, and$$e^*$$is the charge on a proton. In this paper, we develop a spectral element algorithm to compute the electrophoretic velocity of a spherical, rigid, dielectric particle, of fixed dimensionless surface charge density$$\sigma$$over a wide range of$$\beta$$. Here,$$\sigma =(e^*a^*/\epsilon ^*k_B^*T^*)\sigma ^*$$, where$$\sigma ^*$$is the dimensional surface charge density, and$$\epsilon ^*$$is the permittivity of the electrolyte. For moderately charged particles ($$\sigma ={O}(1)$$), the electrophoretic velocity is linear in$$\beta$$when$$\beta \ll 1$$, and its dependence on the ratio of the Debye length ($$1/\kappa ^*$$) to particle radius (denoted by$$\delta =1/(\kappa ^*a^*)$$) agrees with Henry's formula. As$$\beta$$increases, the nonlinear contribution to the electrophoretic velocity becomes prominent, and the onset of this behaviour is$$\delta$$-dependent. For$$\beta \gg 1$$, the electrophoretic velocity again becomes linear in field strength, approaching the Hückel limit of electrophoresis in a dielectric medium, for all$$\delta$$. For highly charged particles ($$\sigma \gg 1$$) in the thin-Debye-layer limit ($$\delta \ll 1$$), our computations are in good agreement with recent experimental and asymptotic results. 

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