Related papers: Structural phase transitions in low-dimensional io…
Ions of the same charge inside confining potentials can form crystalline structures which can be controlled by means of the ions density and of the external trap parameters. In particular, a linear chain of trapped ions exhibits a…
A model predicting the structure of repulsive, spherically symmetric, monodisperse particles confined between two walls is presented. We study the buckling transition of a single flat layer as the double layer state develops. Experimental…
We propose Landau phenomenology for describing the phase transition from the conventional nematic into the conical helical orientationally non-uniform structure recently identified in liquid crystals formed by "banana"-shaped molecules. The…
We study structural transitions in a system of interacting particles arranged as a crystalline bilayer, as a function of the density $\rho$ and the distance $d$ between the layers. As $d$ is decreased a sequence of transitions involving…
A string of repulsively interacting particles exhibits a phase transition to a zigzag structure, by reducing the transverse trap potential or the interparticle distance. The transition is driven by transverse, short wavelength vibrational…
We study singularities in the large deviation function of the time-averaged current of diffusive systems connected to two reservoirs. A set of conditions for the occurrence of phase transitions, both first and second order, are obtained by…
The properties of materials near structural phase transitions are often successfully described in the framework of Landau theory. While the focus is usually on phase transitions, which are induced by temperature changes approaching a…
Mixed-order phase transitions display a discontinuity in the order parameter like first-order transitions yet feature critical behavior like second-order transitions. Such transitions have been predicted for a broad range of equilibrium and…
We consider two-dimensional systems of point particles located on rectangular lattices and interacting via pairwise potentials. The goal of this paper is to investigate the phase transitions (and their nature) at fixed density for the…
These lectures focus on bifurcation analysis as a tool for studying phase transitions that occur in models of liquid-crystalline systems. We show how this approach bridges the gap between the phenomenological Landau theory and the --- often…
A model for two-dimensional colloids confined laterally by "structured boundaries" (i.e., ones that impose a periodicity along the slit) is studied by Monte Carlo simulations. When the distance D between the confining walls is reduced at…
Using molecular dynamics simulation we have investigated the influence of random pinning on the phase diagram and melting scenarios of a two-dimensional (2D) system with the Hertz potential for $\alpha=5/2$. For the first time it has been…
We investigate the chiral phase transition of a QCD-like theory, based the shape change of the effective potential near the critical point. The potential is constructed with the auxiliary field method, and a source term coupled to the field…
A free-energy minimization approach is used to address the secular & dynamical instabilities & the bifurcations along sequences of rotating, self-gravitating fluid and stellar systems. Our approach stems from the Landau-Ginzburg theory of…
A simplified Ginzburg-Landau theory is presented to study generally a coupling of a first-order phase transition (FOPT) to a second-order phase transition (SOPT). We show analytically that, due to the coupling between the two phase…
We study a two-dimensional crystal composed of active units governed by self-alignment. This mechanism induces a torque that aligns a particle's orientation with its velocity and leads to a phase transition from a disordered to a flocking…
For a Landau-Zener transition in a two-level system, the probability for a particle, initially in the first level, {\em i}, to survive the transition and to remain in the first level, depends exponentially on the square of the tunnel matrix…
A rigorous theory of liquid-crystal transitions is developed starting from the Liouville equation. The starting point is an all-atom description and a set of order parameter field variables that are shown to evolve slowly via Newton's…
While engineered quantum systems are a general route to the manipulation of multipartite quantum states, access in a physical system to a continuous quantum phase transition under sufficient control offers the possibility of an intrinsic…
A Wigner crystal formed with trapped ion can undergo structural phase transition, which is determined only by the mechanical conditions on a classical level. Instead of this classical result, we show that through consideration of quantum…