Related papers: Surface instability and isotopic impurities in qua…
The "melting" of self-formed rigid structures made of a small number of interacting classical particles confined in an irregular two-dimensional space is investigated using Monte Carlo simulations. It is shown that the interplay of…
Due to the intertwining between electronic nematic and elastic degrees of freedom, lattice defects and structural inhomogeneities commonly found in crystals can have a significant impact on the electronic properties of nematic materials.…
The melting temperature ($T_m$) of a solid is generally determined by the pressure applied to it, or indirectly by its density ($n$) through the equation of state. This remains true even for helium solids\cite{wilk:67}, where quantum…
The stability of ferromagnetism at the surface at finite temperatures is investigated within the strongly correlated Hubbard model on a semi-infinite lattice. Due to the reduced surface coordination number the effective Coulomb correlation…
We consider nonlinear boson states with a nontrivial phase structure in the three-site Bose-Hubbard ring, {\em quantum discrete vortices} (or {\em q-vortices}), and study their "melting" under the action of quantum fluctuations. We…
A decrease in the rotational period observed in torsional oscillator measurements was recently taken as a possible indication of a supersolid state of helium. We reexamine this interpretation and note that the decrease in the rotation…
The melting of metallic nanoparticles is governed by surface pre-melting, a phenomenon traditionally modeled as the isotropic growth of a uniform liquid shell. Challenging this classical view, we report facet-dependent surface pre-melting…
We discuss how the thermalization of an elementary quantum system is modified when the system is placed in an environment out of thermal equilibrium. To this aim we provide a detailed investigation of the dynamics of an atomic system placed…
We use molecular dynamics simulations to study the melting of gold icosahedral clusters of a few thousand atoms. We pay particular attention to the behavior of surface atoms, and to the equilibrium shape of the cluster. We find that…
The boundary-induced scaling of three-dimensional random field Ising magnets is investigated close to the bulk critical point by exact combinatorial optimization methods. We measure several exponents describing surface criticality:…
We study the stability of topologically protected zero-energy flat bands at the surface of nodal noncentrosymmetric superconductors, accounting for the alteration of the gap near the surface. Within a selfconsistent mean-field theory, we…
We study 2D solids with weak substrate disorder, using Coulomb gas renormalisation. The melting transition is found to be replaced by a sharp crossover between a high $T$ liquid with thermally induced dislocations, and a low $T$ glassy…
Measuring local temperatures of open systems out of equilibrium is emerging as a novel approach to study the local thermodynamic properties of nanosystems. An operational protocol has been proposed to determine the local temperature by…
We briefly review the effects of selective solvation of ions in aqueous mixtures, where the ion densities and the composition fluctuations are strongly coupled. We then examine the surface tension \gamma of a liquid-liquid interface in the…
Faraday surface instability measurements of the critical acceleration, a_c, and wavenumber, k_c, for standing surface waves on a tetracosanol (C_24H_50) melt exhibit abrupt changes at T_s=54degC above the bulk freezing temperature. The…
Recent quantum oscillation experiments on SmB$_6$ pose a paradox, for while the angular dependence of the oscillation frequencies suggest a 3D bulk Fermi surface, SmB$_6$ remains robustly insulating to very high magnetic fields. Moreover, a…
We analyze the experimental data on inelastic neutron scattering by a thin ~5-atomic-layer film of liquid helium at three different temperatures: T=0.4K, 0.98K and 1.3K. These data were partially published previously, but here we present…
Alkali halide (100) surfaces are anomalously poorly wetted by their own melt at the triple point. We carried out simulations for NaCl(100) within a simple (BMHFT) model potential. Calculations of the solid-vapor, solid-liquid and…
By introducing finite size surface and interfacial excess quantities, interactions between interfaces are shown to modify the usual surface premelting phenomenon. It is the case of surface melting of a thin solid film s deposited on a…
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are soft phase-changing solids that exhibit large reversible contractions upon heating, Goldstone-like soft modes and resultant microstructural instabilities. We heat a planar LCE slab to isotropic, clamp…