Related papers: First order alignment transition in an interfaced …

Starting from a three-dimensional description of an active nematic layer, we employ an asymptotic theory to derive a series of low-dimensional continuum models that capture the coupled dynamics of flat and curved films, including variations…

Controlling interfaces of phase separating fluid mixtures is key to creating diverse functional soft materials. Traditionally, this is accomplished with surface-modifying chemical agents. Using experiment and theory, we study how mechanical…

Ferroelectric ordering in liquids is a fundamental question of physics. Here, we show that ferroelectric ordering of the molecules causes formation of recently reported splay nematic liquid-crystalline phase. As shown by dielectric…

We study numerically the behaviour of a mixture of a passive isotropic fluid and an active polar gel, in the presence of a surfactant favouring emulsification. Focussing on parameters for which the underlying free energy favours the…

Alloys with a first-order magnetic transition are central to solid-state refrigeration technology, sensors and actuators, or spintronic devices. The discontinuous nature of the transition in these materials is a consequence of the coupling…

Swimming bacteria in passive nematics in the form of lyotropic liquid crystals are defined as a new class of active matter known as living liquid crystals in recent studies. It has also been shown that liquid crystal solutions are promising…

We study a continuum model of an extensile active nematic to show that mesoscale turbulence develops in two stages: (i) ordered regions undergo an intrinsic hydrodynamic instability generating walls, lines of stong bend deformations, (ii)…

The pattern of isentropes in the vicinity of a first-order phase transition is proposed as a key for a sub-classification. While the confinement--deconfinement transition, conjectured to set in beyond a critical end point in the QCD phase…

We report on the discovery of a quantum tri-critical point (QTP) separating a line of first-order topological quantum phase transitions from a continuous transition regime in a strongly correlated one-dimensional lattice system.…

Many physical systems involve two types of orientational order, which are coupled together. For example, ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals have coupled polar and nematic order, and tilted hexatic phases have coupled polar and hexatic…

We use Langevin dynamics simulations to study dynamical behaviour of a dense planar layer of active semi-flexible filaments. Using the strength of active force and the thermal persistence length as parameters, we map a detailed phase…

Active nematics are out-of-equilibrium systems in which energy injection at the microscale drives emergent collective behaviors, from spontaneous flows to active turbulence. While the dynamics of these systems have been extensively studied,…

We study the melting of a moving vortex lattice through numerical simulations with the current driven 3D XY model with disorder. We find that there is a first-order phase transition even for large disorder when the corresponding equilibrium…

We use density-functional theory, of the fundamental-measure type, to study the relative stability of the biaxial nematic phase, with respect to non-uniform phases such as smectic and columnar, in fluids made of hard board-like particles…

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…

The critical behavior at the transition from uniform nematic to twist-bend modulated nematic phase is revealed and shown to be well explained by the mean field approximation. The study was performed on a group of materials that exhibit an…

First order phase transitions, where one phase replaces another by virtue of a simple crossing of free energies, are best known between solids, liquids and vapours, but they also occur in a wide range of other contexts, including even…

We study the liquid-solid transition in a collection of interacting particles moving through a dissipative medium under the action of a constant, spatially uniform external force, e.g. a charge-stabilized suspension in a fluidized bed or a…

A lattice gas with infinite repulsion between particles separated by $\leq 1$ lattice spacing, and nearest-neighbor hopping dynamics, is subject to a drive favoring movement along one axis of the square lattice. The equilibrium (zero drive)…

Partially phase-separated liquid-crystal/polymer dispersions display highly fibrillar domain morphologies that are dramatically different from the typical structures found in isotropic mixtures. To explain this, we numerically explore the…