Regensburg 2016 – scientific programme

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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 50: Wetting, Nano- and Microfluidics I (joint session CPP/DY, organized by CPP)

CPP 50.5: Talk

Thursday, March 10, 2016, 10:45–11:00, H42

Waves at viscoelastic surfaces — •Julian Kappler and Roland R. Netz — Institut für Theoretische Physik, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany

Waves on water, whose properties depend on gravity and surface tension, are a well-known phenomenon. If there is a surfactant that reacts viscoelastically under compression, like e.g. a biomembrane on water, also another type of surface wave, called longitudinal capillary wave, can exist. On the other hand, on viscoelastic solids there exist Rayleigh waves. These are surface waves which, on a large scale, can be excited by earthquakes, or, on a small scale, can be excited on materials to measure their mechanical properties non-destructively.

We present a unified treatment of all the above waves: We consider a viscoelastic medium covered by a viscoelastic interface and derive a general equation characterizing localized waves at the interface. We show how the aforementioned waves can be derived from this general equation, identify a new surface wave, and discuss how all these waves are interrelated.

Reference: J. Kappler, R. R. Netz. Multiple surface wave solutions on linear viscoelastic media. EPL, 112(1):19002, 2015.