[en] Several workers have established that the Larkin domains for two three-dimensional nonmetallic elastic solids in contact with each other at a disordered but atomically flat interface are enormously large, implying that there should be negligible static friction per unit area in the macroscopic solid limit. In contrast, the present Letter argues that when the Larkin domains are calculated for disorder on the multiasperity scale, they are much smaller than the interface size. This can account for the virtual universal occurrence of static friction

[en] A sudden drop in mechanical friction between an adsorbed nitrogen monolayer and a lead substrate occurs when the lead passes through the superconducting transition temperature. We attribute this effect to a sudden drop at the superconducting transition temperature of the substrate Ohmic heating. The Ohmic heating is due to the electronic screening current that results from the sliding adsorbed film. (c) 2000 The American Physical Society

[en] It is argued on the basis of the Chirikov overlap of resonances criterion for the development of chaos and ergodicity that Anderson localization of the phonon modes or the spin-wave modes (in the case of ferromagnetic resonance) can result in a large reduction in the rate of energy absorption by a solid from an oscillating external field. This phenomenon is illustrated by numerical calculations on simple model systems. (c) 2000 The American Physical Society