Gravitational self-force corrections to tidal invariants for particles on eccentric orbits in a Schwarzschild spacetime

We study tidal effects induced by a particle moving along a slightly eccentric equatorial orbit in a Schwarzschild spacetime within the gravitational self-force framework. We compute the first-order (conservative) corrections in the mass ratio to the eigenvalues of the electric-type and magnetic-type tidal tensors up to the second order in eccentricity and through the 9.5 post-Newtonian order. Previous results on circular orbits are thus generalized and recovered in a proper limit.

Gravitational self-force corrections to tidal invariants for particles on circular orbits in a Kerr spacetime

We generalize to the Kerr spacetime existing self-force results on tidal invariants for particles moving along circular orbits around a Schwarzschild black hole. We obtain linear-in-mass-ratio (conservative) corrections to the quadratic and cubic electric-type invariants and the quadratic magnetic-type invariant in series of the rotation parameter up to the fourth order and through the ninth and eighth post-Newtonian orders, respectively. We then analytically compute the associated eigenvalues of both electric and magnetic tidal tensors.

Twisted gravitational waves of Petrov type D

Twisted gravitational waves (TGWs) are nonplanar unidirectional Ricci-flat solutions of general relativity. Thus far only TGWs of Petrov type II are implicitly known that depend on a solution of a partial differential equation and have wave fronts with negative Gaussian curvature. A special Petrov type D class of such solutions that depends on an arbitrary function is explicitly studied in this paper and its Killing vectors are worked out.

Gravitational self-force corrections to gyroscope precession along circular orbits in the Kerr spacetime

We generalize to Kerr spacetime previous gravitational self-force results on gyroscope precession along circular orbits in the Schwarzschild spacetime. In particular we present high order post-Newtonian expansions for the gauge invariant precession function along circular geodesics valid for an arbitrary Kerr spin parameter and show agreement between these results and those derived from the full post-Newtonian conservative dynamics.

Morphology and flow patterns in highly asymmetric active emulsions

We investigate numerically, by a hybrid lattice Boltzmann method, the morphology and the dynamics of an emulsion made of a polar active gel, contractile or extensile, and an isotropic passive fluid. We focus on the case of a highly off-symmetric ratio between the active and passive components. In absence of any activity we observe an hexatic-ordered droplets phase, with some defects in the layout. We study how the morphology of the system is affected by activity both in the contractile and extensile case.

Rheology of an Inverted Cholesteric Droplet under Shear Flow

The dynamics of a quasi two-dimensional isotropic droplet in a cholesteric liquid crystal medium under symmetric shear flow is studied by lattice Boltzmann simulations. We consider a geometry in which the flow direction is along the axis of the cholesteric, as this setup exhibits a significant viscoelastic response to external stress. We find that the dynamics depends on the magnitude of the shear rate, the anchoring strength of the liquid crystal at the droplet interface and the chirality.

Mesoscopic model for soft flowing systems with tunable viscosity ratio

We propose a mesoscopic model of binary fluid mixtures with tunable viscosity ratio based on a two-range pseudopotential lattice Boltzmann method, for the simulation of soft flowing systems. In addition to the short-range repulsive interaction between species in the classical single-range model, a competing mechanism between the short-range attractive and midrange repulsive interactions is imposed within each species.

Geometric properties of particle trajectories in turbulent flows

We study the statistics of curvature and torsion of Lagrangian trajectories from direct numerical simulations of homogeneous and isotropic turbulence (at Re-lambda approximate to 280) in order to extract informations on the geometry of small-scale coherent structures in turbulent flows. We find that, as previously observed by Braun et al. (W. Braun, F. De Lillo, and B. Eckhardt, Geometry of particle paths in turbulent flows, J. Turbul. 7 (2006), p. 62) and Xu et al. (H. Xu, N.T. Ouellette, and E. Bodenschatz, Curvature of Lagrangian trajectories in turbulence, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007), p.

Rayleigh-Taylor turbulence with singular nonuniform initial conditions

We perform direct numerical simulations of three-dimensional Rayleigh-Taylor turbulence with a nonuniform singular initial temperature background. In such conditions, the mixing layer evolves under the driving of a varying effective At wood number; the long-time growth is still self-similar, but no longer proportional to t(2) and depends on the singularity exponent c of the initial profile Delta T proportional to z(c). We show that universality is recovered when looking at the efficiency, defined as the ratio of the variation rates of the kinetic energy over the heat flux.