Related papers: Incompatible sets of gradients and metastability
In this article, we review the metastable hierarchy in low-temperature lattice models. In the first part, we state that for any abstract lattice system governed by a Hamiltonian potential and evolving according to a Metropolis-type…
Stochastic systems often exhibit multiple viable metastable states that are long-lived. Over very long timescales, fluctuations may push the system to transition between them, drastically changing its macroscopic configuration. In realistic…
Glass-forming systems, which are characterized by a highly disordered energy landscape, have been studied in physics by a simulation-based state space aggregation. The purpose of this article is to develop a path-independent approach within…
We predict the conditions under which two oppositely charged membranes show a dynamic, attractive instability. Two layers with unequal charges of opposite sign can repel or be stable when in close proximity. However, dynamic charge density…
In the last decades, significant progress has been made in understanding the multiphase displacement through porous media with homogeneous wettability and its relation to the pore geometry. However, the role of wettability at the scale of…
A variational model for describing the morphology of two-phase continua by allowing for the interplay between coherent and incoherent interfaces is introduced. Coherent interfaces are characterized by the microscopical arrangement of atoms…
Nonequilibrium, quasi-stationary states of a one-dimensional "hard" $\phi^4$ deterministic lattice, initially thermalized to a particular temperature, are investigated when brought into contact with a stochastic thermal bath at lower…
Here we present a fundamental comprehension of the microscopic mechanisms leading to the emergence of inverse melting transitions by considering a thorough mean-field analysis of a variety of minimal models with different competing…
The succession of suggested mechanisms of solid-state phase transitions - Second-order, Lambda, Martensitic, Displacive, Topological, Order-Disorder, Soft-mode, Incommensurate, Scaling and Quantum - are analyzed and explained why they…
Phase diagrams are an invaluable tool for material synthesis and provide information on the phases of the material at any given thermodynamic condition. Conventional phase diagram generation involves experimentation to provide an initial…
The impact of confinement on self-assembly of particles interacting with short-range attraction and long-range repulsion (SALR) potential is studied for thermodynamic states corresponding to local ordering of clusters or layers in the bulk.…
We consider the problem of metastability for a stochastic dynamics with a parallel updating rule with single spin rates equal to those of the heat bath for the Ising nearest neighbors interaction. We study the exit from the metastable…
A diffuse-interface model for microstructure with an arbitrary number of components and phases was developed from basic thermodynamic and kinetic principles and formalized within a variational framework. The model includes a composition…
Consider a droplet of liquid on top of a grooved substrate. The wetting or not of a groove implies the crossing of a potential barrier as the interface has to distort, to hit the bottom of the groove. We start with computing the free…
We consider interacting vortices in a quasi-one-dimensional array of Josephson junctions with small capacitance. If the charging energy of a junction is of the order of the Josephson energy, the fluctuations of the superconducting order…
We study the solid-to-liquid transition in a two-dimensional fully periodic soft-glassy model with an imposed spatially heterogeneous stress. The model we consider consists of droplets of a dispersed phase jammed together in a continuous…
A system of neutral atoms trapped in an optical lattice and dispersively coupled to the field of an optical cavity can realize a variation of the Bose-Hubbard model with infinite-range interactions. This model exhibits a first order quantum…
Phase transformations such as freezing typically start with heterogeneous nucleation. Heterogeneous nucleation near a wetting transition, of a crystalline phase is studied. The wetting transition occurs at or near a vapour-liquid transition…
We consider the Potts model on a two-dimensional periodic rectangular lattice with general coupling constants $J_{ij}>0$, where $i,j\in\{1,2,3\}$ are the possible spin values (or colors). The resulting energy landscape is thus significantly…
A reactive fluid dissolving the surrounding rock matrix can trigger an instability in the dissolution front, leading to spontaneous formation of pronounced channels or wormholes. Theoretical investigations of this instability have typically…