Related papers: Vacancy-stabilized crystalline order in hard cubes
First-order phase transitions occur through the nucleation of critical bubbles of the stable phase within the metastable phase. Using holography, we present a fully microscopic description of these bubbles in a strongly coupled,…
We present a novel Monte Carlo simulation of the phase separation dynamics of a model fluid membrane. Such a phase segregation induces shape changes of the membrane and results in local `budding' under favourable conditions. We present a…
In a large variety of ideal crystals we found that when rapidly migrating atoms squash or annihilate a neighbouring vacancy and produce a disordered cluster, the heat of migration stored in the system exceeds the enthalpy increase required…
We demonstrate that first-order phase transitions in 1+1-dimensional nonequilibrium systems with fluctuating ordered phases are impossible, provided that there are no additional conservation laws, long-range interactions, macroscopic…
We investigate the dependence of the structural phase transitions in an infinite quasi-one-dimensional system of repulsively interacting particles on the profile of the confining channel. Three different functional expressions for the…
Curved particles have been shown to stabilize a range of states with unique order in dense suspensions of colloidal bent core liquid crystals. The shape of the colloidal rods encourages the formation of curved director fields. However,…
Experiments investigating particles floating on a randomly stirred fluid show regions of very low density, which are not well understood. We introduce a simplified model for understanding sparsely occupied regions of the phase space of…
Computer simulations of simple model systems for liquid crystals are briefly reviewed, with special emphasis on systems of ellipsoids. First, we give an overview over some of the most commonly studied systems (ellipsoids, Gay-Berne…
We consider an off-lattice liquid crystal pair potential in strictly two dimensions. The potential is purely repulsive and short-ranged. Nevertheless, by means of a single parameter in the potential, the system is shown to undergo a…
Fluctuation-dominated phase ordering refers to a steady state in which the magnitude of long-range order varies strongly owing to fluctuations, and to the associated coarsening phenomena during the approach to steady state. Strong…
We analyse structure and dynamics in simulated high-concentration hard sphere colloidal suspensions by means of calculations based on the void space. We show that remoteness, a quantity measuring the scale of spaces, is useful in studying…
Motivated by experiments on sheared suspensions that show a transition between ordered and disordered phases, we here study the long-time behavior of a sheared and overdamped 2-d system of particles interacting by repulsive forces. As a…
Systems of hard nonspherical particles exhibit a variety of stable phases with different degrees of translational and orientational order, including isotropic liquid, solid crystal, rotator and a variety of liquid crystal phases. In this…
Strongly first-order phase transitions, i.e., those with a large order parameter, are characterized by a considerable supercooling and high velocities of phase transition fronts. A very strong phase transition may have important…
We consider consequences of local disorder in systems experiencing first order phase transitions. Such systems can be of rather different nature. For example, manganates showing gigantic magnetoelectric effect, doped antiferroelectrics or…
We study the order-disorder transition of horizontally swirled dry and wet granular disks by means of computer simulations. Our systematic investigation of the local order formation as a function of amplitude and period of the external…
We investigate bubble dynamics in a holographic superfluid undergoing a first-order phase transition with spontaneous $U(1)$ symmetry breaking. Near the nucleation threshold, the system exhibits universal critical behavior governed by a…
It has been widely accepted that the introduction of titanium carbides into titanium-based alloys can significantly enhance the oxidation resistance due to their superior physicochemical stability at elevated temperatures. The present study…
The hydrodynamic stability of deflagration and detonation bubbles for a first order electroweak and QCD phase transition has been discussed recently with the suggestion that detonations are stable. We examine here the case of a detonation…
Disordered systems like liquids, gels, glasses, or granular materials are not only ubiquitous in daily life and in industrial applications but they are also crucial for the mechanical stability of cells or the transport of chemical and…