Biomedical subjects

Yves Pomeau

Publications and source records attributed to Yves Pomeau.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Condensation of classical nonlinear waves.

We study the formation of a large-scale coherent structure (a condensate) in classical wave equations by considering the defocusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation as a representative model. We formulate a thermodynamic description of the classical condensation process by using a wave turbulence theory with ultraviolet cutoff. In three dimensions the equilibrium state undergoes a phase transition for sufficiently low energy density, while no transition occurs in two dimensions, in complete analogy with standard Bose-Einstein condensation in quantum systems. On the basis of a modified wave turbulence theory, we show that the nonlinear interaction makes the transition to condensation subcritical. The theory is in quantitative agreement with the numerical integration of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation.

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PubMed2004

Diffusion and reaction-diffusion in fast cellular flows.

Cellular structures, as the rolls generated by Rayleigh-Bénard instability, have always been an important topic in nonlinear science. The diffusion of a passive scalar in a given steady cellular flow becomes an interesting question in the limit of a large Péclet number, often realistic. The main result there is that the effective diffusion is somewhere in between the molecular diffusion and the "turbulent" diffusion. A new added twist to this is the reaction-diffusion case, where the front speed is the laminar propagation velocity (without flow) times the Péclet number to the power 1/4. I refine this last result and give the behavior of the prefactor in the Zel'dovich limit of a narrow reaction zone.

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PubMed2003

Dissipative flow and vortex shedding in the Painlevé boundary layer of a Bose-Einstein condensate.

This paper addresses the drag force and formation of vortices in the boundary layer of a Bose-Einstein condensate stirred by a laser beam following the experiments of Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 2502 (1999)]. We make our analysis in the frame moving at constant speed where the beam is fixed. We find that there is always a drag around the laser beam. We also analyze the mechanism of vortex nucleation. At low velocity, there are no vortices and the drag has its origin in a wakelike phenomenon: This is a particularity of trapped systems since the density gets small in an extended region. The shedding of vortices starts only at a threshold velocity and is responsible for a large increase in drag. This critical velocity for vortex nucleation is lower than the critical velocity computed for the corresponding 2D problem at the center of the cloud.

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