{"paper":{"title":"Snapping and Switching of Elastic Arches with Patterned Preferred Curvature","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["physics.class-ph"],"primary_cat":"cond-mat.soft","authors_text":"Ammar Khan, John S. Biggins, Micha{\\l} Zmy\\'slony","submitted_at":"2026-01-10T15:38:54Z","abstract_excerpt":"An elastic arch is an archetypal bistable system. Here, we combine elastica theory and photo-mechanical experiments to elucidate the mechanics of an active arch with a spatio-temporally varying preferred curvature $\\overline \\kappa(s)$. Our shallow-arch theory completely describes any such system via the decomposition of its $\\overline \\kappa(s)$ into Euler-buckling modes. Intuitively, if $\\overline \\kappa(s)$ overlaps with the fundamental mode, it snaps the arch up/down. Conversely, non-overlapping $\\overline \\kappa(s)$ drives a second-order transition to a higher-order shape. Furthermore, th"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2601.06598","kind":"arxiv","version":2},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2601.06598/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}