2015/11/20 by Bisconti, Luca, Mariano, Paolo Maria
#FOS: Physical sciences #Mathematical Physics (math-ph)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1511.06646
Quasicrystals are characterized by quasi-periodic arrangements of atoms. The description of their mechanics involves deformation and a (so called phason) vector field accounting at macroscopic scale of local phase changes, due to atomic flips necessary to match quasi-periodicity under the action of the external environment. Here we discuss the mechanics of quasicrystals, commenting the shift from its initial formulation, as standard elasticity in a space with dimension twice the ambient one, to a more elaborated setting avoiding physical inconveniences of the original proposal. In the new setting we tackle two problems. First we discuss the linear dynamics of quasicrystals including a phason diffusion. We prove existence of weak solutions and their uniqueness under rather general boundary and initial conditions. We then consider phason rotational inertia, non-linearly coupled with the curl of the macroscopic velocity, and prove once again existence of weak solutions to the pertinent balance equations.