Related papers: Topological defect motifs in two-dimensional Coulo…
The configurational and melting properties of large two-dimensional clusters of charged classical particles interacting with each other via the Coulomb potential are investigated through the Monte Carlo simulation technique. The particles…
How topological defects affect the dynamics of particles hopping between lattice sites of a distorted, two-dimensional crystal is addressed. Perturbation theory and numerical simulations show that weak, short-ranged topological disorder…
We study the non-equilibrium dynamics of two dimensional planar ion Coulomb crystals undergoing a structural buckling transition to a three plane configuration, driven by a reduction of the transverse confining frequency. This phase…
At low densities, electrons confined to two dimensions in a delta-doped heterostructure can arrange themselves into self-consistent droplets due to disorder and screening effects. We use this observation to show that at low temperatures,…
We use molecular dynamics to study the ordering of a nematic liquid crystal around a spherical particle or droplet. Homeotropic boundary conditions and strong anchoring create a hedgehog director configuration on the particle surface and in…
The interplay between order and geometry in soft condensed matter systems is an active field with many striking results and even more open problems. Ordered structures on curved surfaces appear in multi-electron helium bubbles, viral and…
The low-energy properties of two-dimensional ensembles of dipole-coupled magnetic nanoparticles are studied as function of structural disorder and particle coverage. Already small deviations from a square particle arrangement lift the…
We study the ground state properties of classical Coulomb charges interacting with a 1/r potential moving on a plane but confined either by a circular hard wall boundary or by a harmonic potential. The charge density in the continuum limit…
The energy landscapes of electrostatically charged particles embedded on constant mean curvature surfaces are analysed for a wide range of system size, curvature, and interaction potentials. The surfaces are taken to be rigid, and the…
This is a survey article for the Encyclopedia of Mathematical Physics, 2nd Edition. Topological defects are described in the context of the 2-dimensional Ising model on the lattice, in 2-dimensional quantum field theory, in topological…
At very low density, the electrons in a uniform electron gas spontaneously break symmetry and form a crystalline lattice called a Wigner crystal. But which type of crystal will the electrons form? We report a numerical study of the density…
We comprehend the role of imperfections in materials consisting of interacting particles, arising from different origins on their universal features. Specifically, we report the static and dynamic responses in a cluster of Coulomb…
A two-dimensional electron gas in a high magnetic field displays macroscopically degenerate Landau levels, which can be split into Hofstadter subbands by means of a weak periodic potential. By carefully engineering such a potential, one can…
We describe the topological cluster classification (TCC) algorithm. The TCC detects local structures with bond topologies similar to isolated clusters which minimise the potential energy for a number of monatomic and binary simple liquids…
The classic combinatorial construct of {\em maximum matchings} probes the random geometry of regions with local sublattice imbalance in a site-diluted bipartite lattice. We demonstrate that these regions, which host the monomers of any…
Geometrical arrangements of minimum energy of a system of identical repelling particles in two dimensions are studied for different forms of the interaction potential. Stability conditions for the triangular structure are derived, and some…
We investigate how imposing kinetic restrictions on quantum particles that would otherwise hop freely on a two-dimensional lattice can lead to topologically ordered states. The kinetically constrained models introduced here are derived as a…
We study the relationship between topological defect formation and ground-state packings in a model of repulsions in external confining potentials. Specifically we consider screened 2D Coulombic repulsions, which conveniently parameterizes…
We present a theoretical study of classical Wigner crystals in two- and three-dimensional isotropic parabolic traps aiming at understanding and quantifying the configurational uncertainty due to the presence of multiple stable…
Ice systems are prototypes of locally constrained dynamics. This is exemplified in Coulomb-liquid phases where a large space of configurations is sampled, each satisfying local ice rules. Dynamics proceeds through `flipping' rings, i.e.,…