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xy-listening

Demo videos plus description for the XY model sonification.

In the following, the functions of the GUI and the XY spin quartet - sonification are demonstrated:


The first video shows how the model works. It has been equilibrated before the video starts. "show vortices!" calculates the location of the vortices and anti-vortices and draws them as red and white circles, respectively. If no vortices are computed, the naked eye can practically detect none of them.
After ca. 25 seconds in the video, the cooling is started. Random fluctuations are smoothed, thus the vortices and anti-vortices become clearer. But also, vortices and anti-vortices annihilate each other. If one waited long enough, the whole lattice would result in a laminar field, all topological information is gone.

In the next example, the sonification is demonstrated for a static, cooled configuration. At first, a range of neighborhood of 2 is chosen: all spin quartets shown in the spotlight are sonified at the same time. Anti-vortex and vortex can clearly be distinguished from each other as different ocates of a tone. A vortex - anti-vortex - pair has a beating, unclearer timbre.This can also be observed for larger neighborhoods of 4. The distance to the clicking point is mapped via amplitude and length of the envelope (and also via left-right panning and base frequencies, that are slightly mistuned to each other.)

The third example shows what happens at high temperatures (above the phase transition). As high temperature means high energy, many vortices and anti-vortices are around. They behave rather freely. When the vortices are not shown, the sonification still gives the impression of a beating, quickly fluctuating plasma of spin quartets.

The last video shows low-temperature configurations. Fewer vortices and anti-vortices are there, and they stay close to each other.In the end, the model is cooled, and the sound becomes clearer until only one anti-vortex is in the spotlight.

 

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