Related papers: Melting of a colloidal crystal
We study the ground state of a system of spinless electrons interacting through a screened Coulomb potential in a lattice ring. By using analytical arguments, we show that, when the effective interaction compares with the kinetic energy,…
We investigate the liquid-glass phase transition in a system of point-like particles interacting via a finite-range attractive potential in D-dimensional space. The phase transition is driven by an `entropy crisis' where the available phase…
The equation of state of nuclear matter suggests that at suitable beam energies the disassembling hot system formed in heavy ion collisions will pass through a liquid-gas coexistence region. Searching for the signatures of the phase…
Crystallization of a classical two-dimensional one-component plasma (electrons interacting with the Coulomb repulsion in a uniform neutralizing positive background) is investigated with a molecular dynamics simulation. The positional and…
Recent experimental and theoretical results have shown the existence of a liquid-liquid phase transition in isotropic systems, such as biological solutions and colloids, whose interaction can be represented via an effective potential with a…
A low-disorder, two-dimensional electron system (2DES) subjected to a large perpendicular magnetic field and cooled to very low temperatures provides a rich platform for studies of many-body quantum phases. The magnetic field quenches the…
The Fermi liquid-Wigner crystal transition in a two dimensional electronic system is revisited with a focus on the nature of the fixed node approximation done in quantum Monte Carlo calculations. Recently, we proposed (Phys. Rev. Lett. 94,…
For two-dimensional many-particle systems first-order, second-order, single step continuous, as well as two-step continuous (KTHNY-like) melting transitions have been found in previous studies. Recent computer simulations, using particle…
At thermal equilibrium, intensive quantities like temperature and pressure have to be uniform throughout the system, restricting inhomogeneous systems composed of different phases. The paradigmatic example is the coexistence of vapor and…
Multicanonical ensemble simulations for the simulation of first-order phase transitions suffer from exponential slowing down. Monte Carlo autocorrelation times diverge exponentially with free energy barriers $\Delta F$, which in $L^d$ boxes…
We calculate the melting line of the pancake-vortex system in a layered superconductor, interpolating between two-dimensional (2D) melting at high fields and the zero-field limit of single-stack evaporation. Long-range interactions between…
The first part of this paper develops a theory for the free energy of lyotropic polymer nematic liquid crystals. We use a continuum model with macroscopic elastic moduli for a polymer nematic phase. By evaluating the partition function,…
The present manuscript gives a theoretical description of the first-order phase transition in a cell fluid model with a modified Morse potential and additional repulsive interaction. In the framework of the grand canonical ensemble, the…
We analyze the combined effect of the long range Coulomb (LRC) interaction and of surface energy on first order density-driven phase transitions in the presence of a compensating rigid background. We study mixed states formed by regions of…
The nature of the glass transition is one of the most important unsolved problems in condensed matter physics. The difference between glasses and liquids is believed to be caused by very large free energy barriers for particle…
It is demonstrated that the crossover between gas- and liquid-like regions on the phase diagram of the Lennard-Jones system occurs at a fixed value of the density divided by its value at the freezing point, $\rho/\rho_{\rm fr}\simeq 0.35$.…
We consider thermal QCD in the large N_C limit, mainly in 1+1 dimensions. The gauge coupling is only taken into account to minimal order, by projection onto colour singlets. An expression for the free energy, exact as N_C goes to infinity,…
Structural correlations between colloids in a binary mixture of charged and uncharged spheres are calculated using computer simulations of the primitive model with explicit microions. For aqueous suspensions in a solvent of large dielectric…
We propose a model that describes phase transition including meta\-stable states present in the van der Waals Equation of State. From a convex optimization problem on the Helmoltz free energy of a mixture, we deduce a dynamical system that…
The phase diagram of the prototypical two-dimensional Lennard-Jones system, while extensively investigated, is still debated. In particular, there are controversial results in the literature as concern the existence of the hexatic phase and…