Related papers: Smectic-glass transition in a liquid crystal cell …
We study smectic-liquid-crystal order in a cell with a heterogeneous substrate imposing surface random positional and orientational pinnings. Proposing a minimal random elastic model, we demonstrate that, for a thick cell, the smectic state…
We explore liquid crystal order in a cell with a "dirty" substrate imposing a random surface pinning. Modeling such systems by a random-field xy-model with surface heterogeneity, we find that orientational order in the three-dimensional…
We study stability and distortions of liquid crystal nematic order in a cell with a random heterogeneous substrate. Modeling this system as a bulk xy model with quenched disorder confined to a surface, we find that nematic order is…
A flux liquid can condense into a smectic crystal in a pure layered superconductors with the magnetic field oriented nearly parallel to the layers. If the smectic order is commensurate with the layering, this crystal is {\sl stable} to…
Smectic liquid crystals are remarkable, beautiful examples of materials microstructure, with ordered patterns of geometrically perfect ellipses and hyperbolas. The solution of the complex problem of filling three-dimensional space with…
We study the structural correlations and the nonlinear response to a driving force of a two-dimensional phase-field-crystal model with random pinning. The model provides an effective continuous description of lattice systems in the presence…
Ordered phases on curved substrates experience a complex interplay of ordering and intrinsic curvature, commonly producing frustration and singularities. This is an especially important issue in crystals as ever-smaller scale materials are…
We study smectic liquid crystals in random environments, e.g., aerogel. A low temperature analysis reveals that even arbitrarily weak quenched disorder (i.e., arbitrarily low aerogel density) destroys translational (smectic) order. A…
The dynamic transition between the ordered flow and the plastic flow is studied for a two-dimensional driven vortex lattice, in the presence of sharp and dense pinning centers, from numerical simulations. For this system, which does not…
Observing and characterizing the complex ordering phenomena of liquid crystals subjected to external constraints constitutes an ongoing challenge for chemists and physicists alike. To elucidate the delicate balance appearing when the…
We present a theory of the elasticity and fluctuations of the Smectic A and C phases in uniaxial, anisotropic disordered environments, e.g., stretched aerogel. We find that, bizarrely, the low-temperature, lower-symmetry Smectic $C$ phase…
Resistively-shunted-junction dynamics is applied to the three dimensional uniformly frustrated XY model with randomly perturbed couplings, as a model for driven steady states in a type-II superconductor with quenched point pinning. For a…
Smectic liquid crystals are materials formed by stacking deformable, fluid layers. Though smectics prefer to have flat, uniformly-spaced layers, boundary conditions can impose curvature on the layers. Since the layer spacing and curvature…
We show that smectic liquid crystals confined in_anisotropic_ porous structures such as e.g.,_strained_ aerogel or aerosil exhibit two new glassy phases. The strain both ensures the stability of these phases and determines their nature. One…
A flux liquid can condense into a smectic crystal in a pure layered superconductor with the magnetic field oriented nearly parallel to the layers. Similar order can arise in low temperature $^4$He films with a highly anisotropic periodic…
We examine the dynamics of driven classical Wigner solids interacting with quenched disorder from charged impurities. For strong disorder, the initial motion is plastic -- in the form of crossing winding channels. For increasing drive, the…
The discrete Gaussian model for the surface of a crystal deposited on a disordered substrate is studied by Monte Carlo simulations. A continuous transition is found from a phase with a thermally-induced roughness to a glassy one in which…
We study the smectic AC transition in anisotropic and uniaxial disordered environments, e.g., aerogel with an external field. We find very strange behavior of translational correlations: the low-temperature, lower-symmetry Smectic C phase…
We discuss the behavior of a crystalline surface with a disordered substrate. We focus on the possible existence of a {\em super-rough} glassy phase, with height-height correlation functions which vary as the square logarithm of the…
We study the smectic $A$-$C$ phase transition in biaxial disordered environments, e.g. fully anisotropic aerogel. We find that both the $A$ and $C$ phases belong to the universality class of the "XY Bragg glass", and therefore have…