In this paper we describe efficient methods of generation of representative volume elements (RVEs) suitable for producing the samples for analysis of effective properties of composite materials via and for stochastic homogenization. We are interested in composites reinforced by a mixture of spherical and cylindrical inclusions. For these geometries we give explicit conditions of intersection in a convenient form for verification. Based on those conditions we present two methods to generate RVEs: one is based on the random sequential adsorption scheme, the other one on the time driven molecular dynamics. We test the efficiency of these methods and show that the first one is extremely powerful for low volume fraction of inclusions, while the second one allows us to construct denser configurations. All the algorithms are given explicitly so they can be implemented directly.

We show that in the context of two-dimensional sigma models minimal coupling of an ordinary rigid symmetry Lie algebra g leads naturally to the appearance of the "generalized tangent bundle" TM ≡ T M ⊕ T * M by means of composite fields. Gauge transformations of the composite fields follow the Courant bracket, closing upon the choice of a Dirac structure D ⊂ TM (or, more generally, the choide of a "small Dirac-Rinehart sheaf" D), in which the fields as well as the symmetry parameters are to take values. In these new variables, the gauge theory takes the form of a (non-topological) Dirac sigma model, which is applicable in a more general context and proves to be universal in two space-time dimensions: a gauging of g of a standard sigma model with Wess-Zumino term exists, iff there is a prolongation of the rigid symmetry to a Lie algebroid morphism from the action Lie algebroid M × g → M into D → M (or the algebraic analogue of the morphism in the case of D). The gauged sigma model results from a pullback by this morphism from the Dirac sigma model, which proves to be universal in two-spacetime dimensions in this sense.

The G/G WZW model results from the WZW-model by a standard procedure of gauging. G/G WZW models are members of Dirac sigma models, which also contain twisted Poisson sigma models as other examples. We show how the general class of Dirac sigma models can be obtained from a gauging procedure adapted to Lie algebroids in the form of an equivariantly closed extension. The rigid gauge groups are generically infinite dimensional and a standard gauging procedure would give a likewise infinite number of 1-form gauge fields; the proposed construction yields the requested finite number of them.Although physics terminology is used, the presentation is kept accessible also for a mathematical audience.

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