– We model numerically the partial normal contact of two elastic rough surfaces with highly correlated asperities. Facing surfaces are unmated and described as self-affine with a Hurst exponent H . The numerical algorithm is based on Fourier acceleration and allows efficient simulation of very large systems. The force, F , versus contact area, A, characteristics follows the law F ∼ A in accorda...

Under certain conditions the ‘singular value function’ formula gives the Hausdorff dimension of self-affine fractals for almost all parameters in a family. We show that the size of the set of exceptional parameters is small both in the sense of Hausdorff dimension and Fourier dimension.

Self-dual gravity may be reformulated as the two dimensional principal chiral model with the group of area preserving diffeomorphisms as its gauge group. Using this formulation, it is shown that self-dual gravity contains an infinite dimensional hidden symmetry whose generators form the Affine (Kac-Moody) algebra associated with the Lie algebra of area preserving diffeomorphisms. This result pr...

We present results of simulations which show unambiguously that DLA clusters are not self-affine, in contrast to frequent claims. The measured observable is the asymmetry of the last step of a walker before he sticks to the growing cluster. Using deposition onto an originally straight line off lattice, we show that this asymmetry tends to zero algebraically with the thickness of the deposit.