Emergent microrobotic oscillators via asymmetry-induced order.

Spontaneous oscillations on the order of several hertz are the drivers of many crucial processes in nature. From bacterial swimming to mammal gaits, converting static energy inputs into slowly oscillating power is key to the autonomy of organisms across scales. However, the fabrication of slow micrometre-scale oscillators remains a major roadblock towards fully-autonomous microrobots.

Causal Geometry.

Information geometry has offered a way to formally study the efficacy of scientific models by quantifying the impact of model parameters on the predicted effects. However, there has been little formal investigation of causation in this framework, despite causal models being a fundamental part of science and explanation. Here, we introduce causal geometry, which formalizes not only how outcomes are impacted by parameters, but also how the parameters of a model can be intervened upon.

Least-rattling feedback from strong time-scale separation.

In most interacting many-body systems associated with some "emergent phenomena," we can identify subgroups of degrees of freedom that relax on dramatically different time scales. Time-scale separation of this kind is particularly helpful in nonequilibrium systems where only the fast variables are subjected to external driving; in such a case, it may be shown through elimination of fast variables that the slow coordinates effectively experience a thermal bath of spatially varying temperature. In this paper, we investigate how such a temperature landscape arises according to how the slow variables affect the character of the driven quasisteady state reached by the fast variables.