Charged elastic rings: deformation and dynamics

TL;DR

This paper investigates the stability, deformation, and dynamics of charged elastic rings, revealing persistent sinusoidal shapes and frequency modulation due to electrostatic forces through simulations and analytical methods.

Contribution

It provides new insights into how long-range electrostatic forces influence the stability and dynamic behavior of elastic ring structures.

Findings

Charged rings exhibit counter-intuitive instabilities.

Sinusoidal deformations persist in lowest-energy states.

Electrostatic forces modulate dominant frequencies during dynamics.

Abstract

We report the counter-intuitive instability of charged elastic rings, and the persistence of sinusoidal deformations in the lowest-energy configurations by the combination of high-precision numerical simulations and analytical perturbation calculation. We also study the dynamical evolution of the charged ring under random disturbance, and reveal the modulation of the dominant frequencies by the electrostatic force. The purely mechanical analysis of the classical ring system presented in this work yields insights into the subtlety of long-range forces in the organization and dynamics of matter.