1536 papers
Statistical mechanics explores how the chaotic motion of countless tiny particles gives rise to the predictable laws governing heat, pressure, and phase transitions. This field bridges the gap between the microscopic world of atoms and the macroscopic reality we experience daily, offering deep insights into why materials behave the way they do.
On Gist.Science, we process every new preprint in this category as it appears on arXiv to make these complex findings accessible to everyone. For each paper, we provide both a plain-language explanation for the curious reader and a detailed technical summary for specialists, ensuring that groundbreaking research is never lost behind a wall of jargon.
Below are the latest papers in statistical mechanics, freshly curated and summarized to help you understand the cutting edge of this fascinating discipline.
This perspective article proposes a novel theoretical framework utilizing active Hamiltonian models to bridge the gap between equilibrium and non-equilibrium physics, aiming to explain anomalous long-wavelength fluctuations and the correspondence between activity-induced annealing and oscillatory shear in dense active solids.
This paper demonstrates that integrable matrix theory can effectively estimate conserved charges in a one-dimensional single-particle system with inhomogeneous hopping, revealing that the number of such charges serves as a quantitative measure of quantum integrability across the chaotic-to-integrable crossover.
This paper investigates the convergence of diffusion model paths as the number of target patterns increases, demonstrating that while the convergence rate scales as with infinite mean square deviation, it enables a novel extrapolation strategy for density estimation and generalization towards the ideal infinite-pattern limit.
Using the functional renormalization group, this paper demonstrates that in the tricritical model in with , the singular endpoint of the Bardeen-Moshe-Bander line of fixed points exhibits a breakdown of scale invariance through nonuniversal mass generation driven by a nonanalytic effective potential, causing the critical exponent to jump from to .
Using the AdS/CFT correspondence to study superfluid phase transitions in a disk geometry, this paper demonstrates that while vortex density follows Kibble-Zurek scaling for slow quenches and a distinct universal scaling for fast quenches, the underlying vortex statistics are best described by a Poisson binomial distribution across both regimes, revealing universal defect distribution laws that extend beyond traditional KZM predictions.
This paper proposes that the bacterial flagellar motor achieves ultrasensitive, non-equilibrium switching through "Global Mechanical Coupling," a mechanism where local mechanical torques from stators drive cooperative conformational changes without requiring direct subunit interactions, thereby enabling faster and more sensitive responses than equilibrium models allow.
This paper numerically demonstrates that while the dissipated work in pulling a polymer chain without internal friction consistently increases with chain length, the presence of internal friction introduces a stiffness-dependent relationship where dissipation either increases or decreases with chain length depending on the pulling trap stiffness, thereby invalidating the simple damping-dissipation correlation observed in single-mode systems.
This paper investigates fully connected active rotator networks with Kuramoto coupling and mixed-sign Gaussian feedback disorder, revealing how the competition between local pinning and collective alignment shapes drift regimes and can be mapped through numerical simulations and analytical limits.
This paper presents an analytical theory for active particles in power-law viscoelastic media by solving coupled non-Markovian generalized Langevin equations, revealing how memory kernels and activity jointly govern anomalous transport regimes and novel dynamical phenomena like fractional short-time motion and enhanced long-time persistence.
This study introduces a Langevin model combining Vicsek-like consensus with XY-like orientational dynamics to demonstrate that finite-time orientational relaxation acts as a critical control parameter, driving a sequence of distinct nonequilibrium phases—including polar bands, a cross-sea state, and micro-clustering—and fundamentally restructuring collective motion in polar active matter.