title: Static friction on the fly: velocity depinning transitions of lubricants in motion.
abstract: The dragging velocity of a model solid lubricant confined between sliding periodic substrates exhibits a phase transition between two regimes, respectively, with quantized and with continuous lubricant center-of-mass velocity. The transition, occurring for increasing external driving force F ext acting on the lubricant, displays a large hysteresis, and has the features of depinning transitions in static friction, only taking place on the fly. Although different in nature, this phenomenon appears isomorphic to a static Aubry depinning transition in a Frenkel-Kontorova model, the role of particles now taken by the moving kinks of the lubricant-substrate interface. We suggest a possible realization in 2D optical lattice experiments.
authors.affiliation: CNR-INFM National Research Center S3 and Department of Physics, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Via Campi 213/A, 41100 Modena, Italy.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vanossi
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Manini
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Caruso
authors.forename: G E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Santoro
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Tosatti