Related papers: Liquid crystals in two dimensions: First-order pha…
The study of liquid-liquid phase transition has attracted considerable attention. One interesting example of such phenomenon is phosphorus for which the existence a first-order phase transition between a low density insulating molecular…
Molecular Dynamic and Monte Carlo studies are performed in a family of core-softened (CS) potential, composed by two length scales: a repulsive shoulder at short distances and the another a variable scale, that can be repulsive or strongly…
We present an experimental study of density and order fluctuations in the vicinity of the solid-liquid-like transition that occurs in a vibrated quasi-two-dimensional granular system. The two-dimensional projected static and dynamic…
In a cluster crystal, each lattice site is occupied by multiple soft-core particles. As the number density is increased at zero temperature, a `cascade' of isostructural phase transitions can occur between states whose site occupancy…
In two dimensions, a system of self-gravitating particles collapses and forms a singularity in finite time below a critical temperature $T_c$. We investigate experimentally a quasi two-dimensional cloud of cold neutral atoms in interaction…
The crystallographic restriction theorem constrains two-dimensional nematicity to display either Ising ($Z_{2}$) or three-state-Potts ($Z_{3}$) critical behaviors, both of which are dominated by amplitude fluctuations. Here, we use group…
We demonstrate that a first order isotropic-to-nematic phase transition in liquid crystals can be succesfully modeled within the generalized Landau-de Gennes theory by selecting an appropriate combination of elastic constants. The numerical…
A cascade of phase transitions from square to hexagonal lattice is studied in 2D system of particles interacting via core-softened potential. Due to the presence of two length-scales of repulsion, different local configurations with four,…
We address the question of why larger, high symmetry crystals are mostly weak, ductile and statistically sub-critical, while smaller crystals with the same symmetry are strong, brittle and super-critical. We link it to another question of…
The Lebwohl-Lasher model describes the isotropic-nematic transition in liquid crystals. In two dimensions, where its continuous symmetry cannot break spontaneously, it is investigated numerically since decades to verify, in particular, the…
First order phase transitions are characterized by the nucleation and evolution of bubbles. The dynamics of cosmological vacuum bubbles, where the order parameter is independent of other degrees of freedom, are well known; more realistic…
Liquid crystals are synthetic and biological viscoelastic anisotropic soft matter materials that combine liquid fluidity with crystal anisotropy and find use in optical devices, sensor/actuators, lubrication, super-fibers. Frequently…
We study the effect of random porous matrices on the ordering in nematic liquid crystals. The randomness destroys orientational lang-range order and drives the liquid crystal into a glass state. We predict two glass phases one of which…
We report the phase diagram of two-dimensional hard ellipses as obtained from replica exchange Monte Carlo simulations. The replica exchange is implemented by expanding the isobaric ensemble in pressure. The phase diagram shows four…
It is generally agreed that the supercritical region of a liquid consists of one single state (supercritical fluid). On the other hand, we show here that liquids in this region exist in two qualitatively different states: "rigid" and…
Real-life bacteria often swim in complex fluids, but our understanding of the interactions between bacteria and complex surroundings is still evolving. In this work, rod-like \textit{Bacillus subtilis} swims in a quasi-2D environment with…
We investigate the connection between the transport properties and the thermodynamics of electronic systems with a tendency to form broken-symmetry mesophases evocative of the physics of liquid crystals. Through a hydrodynamic approach to…
Upon increasing the electron density in a quantum wire, the one-dimensional electron system undergoes a transition to a quasi-one-dimensional state. In the absence of interactions between electrons, this corresponds to filling up the second…
We study an air-fluidized granular monolayer, composed of plastic spheres which roll on a metallic grid. The air current is adjusted so that the spheres never loose contact with the grid, so that the dynamics may be regarded as pseudo…
We investigate through numerical simulations how a two-dimensional crystal yields and flows under an applied shear. We focus over a range that allows us to both address the response in the limit of an infinitesimal shear rate and describe…