Related papers: On the Phase Transitions That Cannot Materialize

There are only two ways for solid-state phase transitions to be compliant with thermodynamics: emerging of infinitesimal quantity of the new phase, or infinitesimal "qualitative" change occurring uniformly throughout the bulk at a time. The…

Metastable phases may be spontaneously formed from other metastable phases through nucleation. Here we demonstrate the spontaneous formation of a metastable phase from an unstable equilibrium by spinodal decomposition, which leads to a…

It is demonstrated by analyzing real examples that phase transitions in layered crystals occur like all other solid-state phase transitions by nucleation and crystal growth, but have a specific morphology. There the nucleation is epitaxial,…

Compact stars above a critical stellar mass develop large scalar fields in some scalar-tensor theories. This scenario, called spontaneous scalarization, has been an intense topic of study since it passes weak-field gravity tests naturally…

Mixed-order phase transitions display a discontinuity in the order parameter like first-order transitions yet feature critical behavior like second-order transitions. Such transitions have been predicted for a broad range of equilibrium and…

There are three kinds of solid states of matter that can exist in physical space: quasicrystalline (quasiperiodic), crystalline (periodic) and amorphous (aperiodic). Herein, we consider the degree of orientational order that develops upon…

Crystals form regular and robust structures that under extreme conditions can melt and recrystallize into different arrangements in a process that is called crystal metamorphism. While crystals exist due to the breaking of a continuous…

From the days when superconductivity was discovered its science was entangled by the unresolved problem of the relationship between superconductive state, its crystal structure and its phase transitions. The problem was exacerbated by the…

The world of two-dimensional crystals is of great significance for the design and study of structural and functional materials with novel properties. The world of two-dimensional crystals is of great significance for the design and study of…

The transitions in disordered substances are discussed briefly: liquid--liquid phase transitions, liquid--glass transition and the transformations of one amorphous form to another amorphous form of the same substances. A description of…

The study of phases is useful for understanding novel states of matter. One such state of matter are time crystals which constitute periodically driven interacting many-body systems that spontaneously break time translation symmetry. Time…

Topological phases of matter are often understood and predicted with the help of crystal symmetries, although they don't rely on them to exist. In this chapter we review how topological phases have been recently shown to emerge in amorphous…

Many systems in nature exhibit transitions between fluid-like states and solid-like states, or "jamming transitions". There is a strong theoretical foundation for understanding equilibrium phase transitions that involve solidification, or…

Polymorphism is ubiquitous in crystalline solids. Amorphous solids, such as glassy water and silicon, may undergo amorphous-to-amorphous transitions (AATs). The nature of AATs remains ambiguous, due to diverse system-dependent behaviors and…

A spatially extended classical system with metastable states subject to weak spatiotemporal noise can exhibit a transition in its activation behavior when one or more external parameters are varied. Depending on the potential, the…

It is difficult to derive the solid--fluid transition from microscopic models. We introduce particle systems whose potentials do not decay with distance and calculate their partition function exactly using a method similar to that for…

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…

Nucleation is an activated process in which the system has to overcome a free energy barrier in order for a first-order phase transition between the metastable and the stable phases to take place. In the liquid-to-solid transition the…

The paper continues a series of papers devoted to treatment of the crystalline state on the basis of the approach in equilibrium statistical mechanics proposed earlier by the author. This paper is concerned with elaboration of a…

We study the evolution from a liquid to a crystal phase in two-dimensional curved space. At early times, while crystal seeds grow preferentially in regions of low curvature, the lattice frustration produced in regions with high curvature is…