Related papers: Liquid crystals in two dimensions: First-order pha…
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…
Nematic liquid crystals confined to geometrically as well as chemically patterned substrate on one end and a flat substrate with strong anchoring on the other is studied using non-Boltzmann Monte Carlo methods. We observe significant…
Liquid crystals are assemblies of rod-like molecules which self-organize to form mesophases, in-between ordinary liquids and anisotropic crystals. At each point, the molecules collectively orient themselves along a privileged direction,…
We present computer simulations of long thin hard spherocylinders in a narrow planar slit. We observe a transition from the isotropic to a nematic phase with quasi-long-range orientational order upon increasing the density. This phase…
We study in this work the dynamics of a collection of identical hollow spheres (ping-pong balls) that rest on a horizontal metallic grid. Fluidization is achieved by means of a turbulent air current coming from below. The upflow is adjusted…
The critical phenomena associated to the liquid to solid transition of quasi-two-dimensional vibrated granular systems is studied using molecular dynamics simulations of the inelastic hard sphere model. The critical properties are…
Although the effects of interactions in solid state systems still remains a widely open subject, some limiting cases such as the three dimensional Fermi liquid or the one-dimensional Luttinger liquid are by now well understood when one is…
We study a three-dimensional system of particles interacting via spherically-symmetric pair potentials consisting of several discontinuous steps. We show that at certain values of the parameters desribing the potential, the system has three…
We numerically study two-dimensional athermal chiral active particles at high densities. The particles in this system perform the circular motion with frequency $\Omega$. We show that the system crystallizes at high densities even in two…
Understanding and controlling the director field configuration, shape, and orientation in nematic and cholesteric liquid crystals is of fundamental importance in several branches of science. Liquid crystalline droplets, also known as…
We consider a two dimensional model of non-interacting chains of spinless fermions weakly coupled via a small inter-chain hopping and a repulsive inter-chain interaction. The phase diagram of this model has a surprising feature: an abrupt…
We experimentally investigate the critical behavior of a phase transition between two topologically different turbulent states of electrohydrodynamic convection in nematic liquid crystals. The statistical properties of the observed…
A rigorous theory of liquid-crystal transitions is developed starting from the Liouville equation. The starting point is an all-atom description and a set of order parameter field variables that are shown to evolve slowly via Newton's…
For two-patch particles in two dimensions, we find that the coupling of anisotropic patchy interactions and the triangular lattice leads to novel phase behaviors. For asymmetric patch-patch (PP) and nonpatch-nonpatch (NN) interactions, the…
In this report we summarize a recent progress in exploration of correlated two-dimensional electron states in partially filled high Landau levels. At a mean-field Hartree-Fock level they can be described as charge-density waves, either…
Pretransitional phenomena at first-order phase transition in crystals diluted by 'neutral' impurities (analogue of nonmagnetic atoms in dilute magnets) are considered. It is shown that field dependence of order parameter becomes…
In equilibrium hard-rod fluids, and in effective hard-rod descriptions of anisotropic soft-particle systems, the transition from the isotropic (I) phase to the nematic phase (N) is observed above the rod aspect ratio L/D = 3.70 as predicted…
Aperiodic crystals are the intermediates between strictly periodic crystalline matter and amorphous solids. The lack of translational symmetry combined with intrinsic long-range order endows aperiodic crystals with unique physical…
We investigate the phase behavior of a single-component system in 3 dimensions with spherically-symmetric, pairwise-additive, soft-core interactions with an attractive well at a long distance, a repulsive soft-core shoulder at an…
Achieving a coherent understanding of the many thermodynamic and dynamic anomalies of water is among the most important unsolved puzzles in physics, chemistry, and biology. One hypothesized explanation imagines the existence of a line of…