Related papers: Structural transitions in sheared electrically sta…
We present a minimal Landau theory of plastic-to-crystal phase transitions in which the key components are a multipole-moment order parameter that describes the orientational ordering of the constituent molecules, coupling between such…
In this paper we explain how to set up what is in fact the only possible consistent construction scheme for a Landau theory of high pressure phase transitions that systematically allows to take into account elastic nonlinearities. We also…
This work deals with the evaluation of the flow curve of colloidal systems that develop fluid phases with different mechanical properties, namely shear-banding fluids. The problem involved is that, as different fluid phases coexist in the…
We find an order-disorder transition from crystals to disordered crystals for static packings of frictionless spheres. While the geometric indicators are mostly blind to the transition, disordered crystals already exhibit properties apart…
Main characteristics of colloidal systems that develop fluid phases with different mechanical properties, namely shear-banding fluids, are briefly reviewed both from experimental and theoretical (modelling) point of view. A non-monotonic…
The theory of the effect of external fluctuation force on the stability and spatial distribution of mutually interacting and slowly evaporating charged drops, levitated in an electrodynamic balance, is presented using classical…
The Landau theory of phase transitions has been productively applied to phase transitions that involve rotational symmetry breaking, such as the transition from an isotropic fluid to a nematic liquid crystal. It even can be applied to the…
In this work we start from the assumption that normal solid to supersolid (NS-SS) phase transition is continuous, and develop a phenomenological Landau theory of the transition in which superfluidity is coupled to the elasticity of the…
A hexagonal columnar crystal undergoes a shear-melting transition above a critical shear rate or stress. We combine the analysis of the shear-thinning regime below the melting with that of synchrotron X-ray scattering data under shear and…
It is believed at present that the chiral transition changes from a smooth crossover to a first-order transition at low temperatures and high densities. Such regime is commonly analyzed using effective models since first principle…
Field-induced assembly of colloidal particles into structures of desired configurations is extremely relevant from the viewpoint of producing field-assembled micro-swimmers and reconfigurable smart materials. However, the behaviour of…
We investigate colloidal suspensions under shear flow through numerical experiments. By measuring the time-correlation function of a bond-orientational order parameter, we find a divergent time scale near a transition point from a…
We investigate the driven states of a two-dimensional crystal whose ground state can be tuned through a square-triangular transition. The depinning of such a system from a quenched random background potential occurs via a complex sequence…
The properties of materials near structural phase transitions are often successfully described in the framework of Landau theory. While the focus is usually on phase transitions, which are induced by temperature changes approaching a…
We advance the novel hypothesis that water in the presence of finite localized strain within fault gouges may lead to the phase transformation of stable minerals into metastable polymorphs of higher free energy density. Under increasing…
Yielding is central to the relaxation, flow and fracture of a wide range of soft and molecular glasses, but its microscopic origin remains unclear. Here, we elucidate the yielding of a colloidal glass by using x-ray scattering to monitor…
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…
Molecular chirality leads to a wonderful variety of equilibrium structures, from the simple cholesteric phase to the twist-grain-boundary phases, and it is responsible for interesting and technologically important materials like…
The authors previously introduced an activation model for the onset of shear thickening in electrically stabilized colloidal suspensions. It predicts that shear thickening occurs, when particles arranged along the compression axis in a…
Transition from bending-dominated to stretching-dominated elastic response in semi-flexible fibrous networks plays an important role in the mechanical behavior of cells and tissues. It is induced by changes in network connectivity and…