Related papers: Liquid crystals in two dimensions: First-order pha…

Structural defects in a crystal are responsible for the "two length-scale" behavior, in which a sharp central peak is superimposed over a broad peak in critical diffuse X-ray scattering. We have previously measured the scaling behavior of…

The isotropic-to-nematic transition in a two-dimensional fluid of hard needles is studied using grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations, multiple histogram reweighting, and finite size scaling. The transition is shown to be of the…

The phase-ordering kinetics of a bulk uniaxial nematic liquid crystal is addressed using techniques that have been successfully applied to describe ordering in the O(n) model. The method involves constructing an appropriate mapping between…

Liquid crystal materials exhibiting up to three nematic phases are reported. Dielectric response measurements show that while the lower temperature nematic phase has ferroelectric order and the highest temperature nematic phase is apolar,…

The dynamic transition between the ordered flow and the plastic flow is studied for a two-dimensional driven vortex lattice, in the presence of sharp and dense pinning centers, from numerical simulations. For this system, which does not…

We have studied the possible existence of a supersolid phase of a two-dimensional dipolar crystal using quantum Monte Carlo methods at zero temperature. Our results show that the commensurate solid is not a supersolid in the thermodynamic…

We use numerical simulation to examine the possibility of a reversible liquid-liquid transition in supercooled water and related systems. In particular, for two atomistic models of water, we have computed free energies as functions of…

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…

In soft matter, the phase of nematic liquid crystals can be made from anisotropic molecules in single component materials, or as a suspension of mesoscopic nematogens. The later offers more versatility in the experimental design of complex…

We study the character of an Ising nematic quantum phase transition (QPT) deep inside a d-wave superconducting state with nodal quasiparticles in a two-dimensional tetragonal crystal. We find that, within a 1/N expansion, the transition is…

Cholesteric liquid crystals exhibit great morphological richness of static metastable states. Understanding the transitions between such states is key for the development of switchable devices. We show, using a quasi-one-dimensional model,…

We describe two dimensional models with a metallic Fermi surface which display quantum phase transitions controlled by strongly interacting critical field theories below their upper critical dimension. The primary examples involve…

We examine dense self-gravitating stellar systems dominated by a central potential, such as nuclear star clusters hosting a central supermassive black hole. Different dynamical properties of these systems evolve on vastly different…

We consider a two-dimensional lattice model for liquid crystals consisting of long rods interacting via purely hard core interactions, with two allowed orientations defined by the underlying lattice. We rigorously prove the existence of a…

We reconsider model II of [J. Chem. Phys. 1968, 49, 1778--1783], a two-dimensional lattice-gas system featuring a crystalline phase and two distinct fluid phases (liquid and vapor). In this system, a particle prevents other particles from…

There seems to be a one to one correspondence between the phases of atomic and molecular matter (AMOM) and vortex matter (VM) in superconductors. Crystals, liquids and glasses have been experimentally observed in both AMOM and VM. However,…

Orientational and positional ordering properties of liquid crystal monolayers are examined by means of Fundamental-Measure Density Functional Theory. Particles forming the monolayer are modeled as hard parallelepipeds of square section of…

There seems to be a one to one correspondence between the phases of atomic and molecular matter (AMOM) and vortex matter (VM) in superfluids and superconductors. Crystals, liquids and glasses have been experimentally observed in both AMOM…

Systems with global symmetry group O(2) experience topological transition in the 2-dimensional space. But there is controversy about such a transition for systems with global symmetry group O(3). In this paper, we study the Lebwohl-Lasher…

CDW/Normal metal/CDW junctions and nanoconstrictions in crystals of the quasi-one-dimensional conductor NbSe$_3$ are manufactured using a focused-ion-beam. It is found that the low-temperature conduction of these structures changes…