English

What do emulsification failure and Bose-Einstein condensation have in common?

Soft Condensed Matter 2009-10-31 v1 Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

Ideal bosons and classical ring polymers formed via self-assembly, are known to have the same partition function, and so analogous phase transitions. In ring polymers, the analogue of Bose-Einstein condensation occurs when a ring polymer of macroscopic size appears. We show that a transition of the same general form occurs within a whole class of systems with self-assembly, and illustrate it with the emulsification failure of a microemulsion phase of water, oil and surfactant. As with Bose-Einstein condensation, the transition occurs even in the absence of interactions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0012256,
  title  = {What do emulsification failure and Bose-Einstein condensation have in common?},
  author = {R. P. Sear and J. A. Cuesta},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0012256},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

7 pages, 1 figure, typeset with EUROTeX, uses epsfig

R2 v1 2026-07-22T10:14:00.042Z