Related papers: The Smectic A to C Phase Transition in Isotropic D…
The equilibrium and non--equilibrium disorder induced phase transitions are compared in the random-field Ising model (RFIM). We identify in the demagnetized state (DS) the correct non-equilibrium hysteretic counterpart of the T=0 ground…
We study the effect of disorder on quantum Hall smectics within the framework of an elastic theory. Based on a renormalization group calculation, we derive detailed results for the degrees of translational and orientational order of the…
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.…
Phase behaviours of liquid crystals under external fields, conjugate to the nematic order and smectic order, are studied within the framework of mean field approximation developed by McMillan. It is found that phase diagrams, of temperature…
We explore the smectic liquid crystal order in a cell with a "dirty" substrate imposing random pinnings. Within harmonic elasticity we find a subtle three-dimensional surface disorder-driven transition into a pinned smectic-glass,…
McMillan liquid crystal model sandwiched between strong homeotropic anchoring walls is studied. Phase transitions between isotropic, nematic, and smectic A phases are investigated for wide ranges of an interaction parameter and of the…
High-resolution X-ray scattering studies of the nonpolar thermotropic liquid crystal 4-n-pentylphenylthiol-4'-n-octyloxybenzoate (\bar{8}S5) in aerosil gel nano-networks reveal that the aerosil-induced disorder significantly alters both the…
We carry out simulations of the anisotropic uniformly frustrated 3D XY model, as a model for vortex line fluctuations in high Tc superconductors. We compute the phase diagram as a function of temperature and anisotropy, for a fixed applied…
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…
A coupled phase-field and hydrodynamic model is introduced to describe a two-phase, weakly compressible smectic (layered phase) in contact with an isotropic fluid of different density. A non-conserved smectic order parameter is coupled to a…
We propose a Landau-de Gennes phenomenological model to describe the pressure induced smectic A-nematic phase transition. The pressure induced smectic A phase transitions are discussed for varying coupling between orientational and…
Semiflexible polymers in concentrated lyotropic solution are studied within a bead-spring model by molecular dynamics simulations, focusing on the emergence of a smectic A phase and its properties. We systematically vary the density of the…
When liquid-crystalline elastomers pass through the isotropic-nematic transition, the orientational order parameter and the elastic strain vary rapidly but smoothly, without the expected first-order discontinuity. This broadening of the…
Under an electric field, chiral smectic liquid crystals transit usually to the unwound SmC* phase where the helical structure is completely unrolled. Sometimes the sample transits initially towards an intermediate polar state before the…
We study one dimensional disordered bosons at large commensurate filling. Using a real space renormalization group approach we find a new random fixed point which controls a phase transition from a superfluid to an incompressible…
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…
We present a study of the influence of different types of disorder on systems in the Ising universality class by employing both a dynamical field theory approach and extensive Monte Carlo simulations. We reproduce some well known results…
Liquid crystal elastomers present a rich combination of effects associated with orientational symmetry breaking and the underlying rubber elasticity. In this work we focus on the effect of the network on the nematic--smectic-{\sl A}…
We present a model for smectic elastomer membranes which includes elastic and liquid crystalline degrees of freedom. Based on our model, we determined the qualitative phase diagram of a smectic elastomer membrane using mean-field theory.…
A comprehensive modeling and simulation study of the first-order isotropic/smectic-A transition is presented and applied to phase diagram computation and two-dimensional spherulite growth. An approach based on nonlinear optimization, that…