Related papers: Hidden scale invariance in the Gay-Berne model. II…
We present a self-contained review of the theory of dislocation-mediated quantum melting at zero temperature in two spatial dimensions. The theory describes the liquid-crystalline phases with spatial symmetries in between a quantum…
A theoretical study of the variation of thermodynamic and transport properties of calamitic liquid crystals across the isotropic-nematic phase transition is carried out by calculating the {\it wavenumber (k) and time (t)} dependent…
The concept of vibrational density of states in glasses has been mirrored in liquids by the instantaneous-normal-mode spectrum. While in glasses instantaneous configurations correspond to minima of the potential-energy hypersurface and all…
The liquid crystalline 11OS5 compound, forming the nematic phase and a few smectic phases, is investigated by broadband dielectric spectroscopy and infra-red spectroscopy. The dielectric relaxation times, ionic conductivity, and positions…
Recent research on interfacial instabilities of smectic films has shown unexpected morphologies that are not fully explained by classical local equilibrium thermodynamics. Annealing focal conic domains can lead to conical pyramids, changing…
We derive a multiphysics model that accounts for network elasticity with spontaneous strains, swelling and nematic interactions in liquid crystal gels (LCGs). We discuss the coupling among the various physical mechanisms, with particular…
The existence of substellar cold H2 globules in planetary nebulae and the mere existence of comets suggest that the physics of cold interstellar gas might be much richer than usually envisioned. We study the case of a cold gaseous medium in…
We study the Stell-Hemmer potential using both analytic (exact $1d$ and approximate $2d$) solutions and numerical $2d$ simulations. We observe in the liquid phase an anomalous decrease in specific volume and isothermal compressibility upon…
Extensions of a previously presented Landau-de Gennes type liquid crystalline phase transition model for the direct isotropic/smectic-A (lamellar) a phase transition to the direct isotropic/smectic-C (tilted lamellar) transition are…
We study the layer-to-layer diffusion in smectic-A liquid crystals of colloidal hard rods with different length-to-diameter ratios using computer simulations. The layered arrangement of the smectic phase yields a hopping-type diffusion due…
The gravitational interaction among bodies orbiting in a spherical potential leads to the rapid relaxation of the orbital planes' distribution, a process called vector resonant relaxation. We examine the statistical equilibrium of this…
The dynamics of phase transitions plays a crucial r\^ole in the so-called interface between high energy particle physics and cosmology. Many of the interesting results generated during the last fifteen years or so rely on simplified…
We have developed x-ray diffraction measurements with high energy-resolution and accuracy to study water structure at three different temperatures (7, 25 and 66 C) under normal pressure. Using a spherically curved Ge crystal an energy…
Soft modulated phases have been shown to undergo complex morphological transitions, in which layer remodeling induced by mean and Gaussian curvatures plays a major role. This is the case in smectic films under thermal treatment, where focal…
An axial next-nearest-neighbor XY model is studied as a model of chiral liquid crystals which exhibit many ferro-, ferri- and antiferroelectric tilted smectic phases. Depending on the values of interaction parameters, this model exhibits…
Determining the melting curves of materials up to high pressures has long been a challenge experimentally and theoretically. A large class of materials, including most metals, has been shown to exhibit hidden scale invariance, an…
We develop a theory of Smectic A - Smectic C phase transition with anomalously weak smectic layer contraction. We construct a phenomenological description of this transition by generalizing the Chen-Lubensky model. Using a mean-field…
The dynamics of active smectic liquid crystals confined on a spherical surface is explored through an active phase field crystal model. Starting from an initially randomly perturbed isotropic phase, several types of topological defects are…
Recent experiments on a $\2d$ Fermi gas find an undamped breathing mode at twice the trap frequency over a wide range of parameters. To understand this seemingly scale-invariant behavior in a system with a scale, we derive two exact results…
We theoretically study the nematic ordering transition of rods that are able to elastically adjust their mutually excluded volumes. The model rods, which consist of a hard core surrounded by a deformable shell, mimic the structure of…