Related papers: The Smectic $A$-$C$ Phase Transition in Biaxial Di…
The two-dimensional XY-model with random phase-shifts on bonds is studied. The analysis is based on a renormalization group for the replicated system. The model is shown to have an ordered phase with quasi long-range order. This ordered…
We study the solid-to-liquid transition in a two-dimensional fully periodic soft-glassy model with an imposed spatially heterogeneous stress. The model we consider consists of droplets of a dispersed phase jammed together in a continuous…
We study the phase transitions of interacting bosons at zero temperature between superfluid (SF) and supersolid (SS) states. The latter are characterized by simultaneous off-diagonal long-range order and broken translational symmetry. The…
In many interesting physical settings, such as the vulcanization of rubber, the introduction of permanent random constraints between the constituents of a homogeneous fluid can cause a phase transition to a random solid state. In this…
We consider a system composed of a stack of weakly Josephson coupled superfluid layers with c-axis disorder in the form of random superfluid stiffnesses and vortex fugacities in each layer as well as random inter-layer coupling strengths.…
Simple symmetry considerations would suggest that the transition from the smectic-A phase to the long-range bond orientationally ordered hexatic smectic-B phase should belong to the XY universality class. However, a number of experimental…
We show that phase transitions in Ising systems with planar defects, i.e., disorder perfectly correlated in two dimensions are destroyed by smearing. This is caused by effects similar to but stronger than the Griffiths phenomena:…
We consider the evolution of the unstable periodic orbit structure of coupled chaotic systems. This involves the creation of a complicated set outside of the synchronization manifold (the emergent set). We quantitatively identify a critical…
The critical behavior at the transition from uniform nematic to twist-bend modulated nematic phase is revealed and shown to be well explained by the mean field approximation. The study was performed on a group of materials that exhibit an…
The row model is used to study the commensurate-incommensurate (C-IC) an isotropic (FFTXY) transitions of the frustrated 2D XY model on the triangular lattice. New relevant variables clarify the physics of these transitions: phase and…
The transition to an absorbing phase in a spatiotemporal system is a well-investigated nonequilibrium dynamic transition. The absorbing phase transitions fall into a few universality classes, defined by the critical exponents observed at…
Starting from an ideal crystalline state, we numerically study a nonequilibrium dynamical order- disorder transition promoted by the application of a periodic shearing protocol at low temperatures in model systems in two and three…
We apply a recently developed technique to determine adapted coordinates for the sixth degree Landau-deGennes potential, in which the potential is specially simple, to analyze the possibility of a direct transition between the fully…
An intermediate nematic phase is proposed for the interpretation of recent experimental results on phase biaxiality in bent-core nematics. The phase is macroscopically uniaxial but consists of microscopic biaxial, and possibly polar,…
We study the low-frequency, long-wavelength dynamics of liquid crystal elastomers, crosslinked in the smectic-$A$ phase, in their smectic-$A$, biaxial smectic and smectic-$C$ phases. Two different yet related formulations are employed. One…
By means of synchrotron X-ray diffraction, we studied the effect of high pressure, P, up to 13 GPa on the room temperature crystal structure of superconducting CaC6. In this P range, no change of the pristine space group symmetry,…
Apparent critical phenomena, typically indicated by growing correlation lengths and dynamical slowing-down, are ubiquitous in non-equilibrium systems such as supercooled liquids, amorphous solids, active matter and spin glasses. It is often…
Optical birefringence measurements on a rod-like liquid crystal (8OCB), imbibed in silica channels (7 nm diameter), are presented and compared to the thermotropic bulk behavior. The orientational and positional order of the confined liquid…
Role of inhomogeneous perturbations of nematic aerogel on the form of the order parameter emerging at the transition of liquid $^3$He in the superfluid state is considered. It is shown that a region of stability of the polar distorted ABM…
We study the adsorption-desorption of fluid molecules on a solid substrate by introducing a schematic model in which the adsorption/desorption transition probabilities are given by irreversible kinetic constraints with a tunable violation…