Phase transition in nanomagnetite

Recently, the application of nanosized magnetite particles became an area of growing interest for their potential practical applications. Nanosized magnetite samples of 36 and 9 nm sizes were synthesized. Special care was taken on the right stoichiometry of the magnetite particles. Mössbauer spectroscopy measurements were made in 4.2–300 K temperature range. The temperature dependence of the intensities of the spectral components indicated size dependent transition taking place in a broad temperature range. For nanosized samples, the hyperfine interaction values and their relative intensities changed above the Verwey transition temperature value of bulk megnetite. The continuous transition indicated the formation of dendritelike granular assemblies formed during the preparation of the samples

The Earliest Phase Transition?

The question of a phase transition in exiting the Planck epoch of the early universe is addressed. An order parameter is proposed to help decide the issue, and estimates are made concerning its behavior. Our analysis is suggestive that a phase transition occurred.Comment: Latex, 10 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Nucl. Phys.

Termination of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless phase with a new critical universality in spin-crossover systems

Two dimensional systems with U(1) symmetry exhibit a peculiar phase, i.e., the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) phase. In particular situations, the BKT phase exists as an intermediate temperature phase. There have been scenarios for the phase transitions at the two endpoints of the intermediate BKT phase, i.e., the phase transition at the low-temperature endpoint is a BKT transition and that at the high-temperature endpoint is either a BKT transition or a first-order transition. The present study gives a novel scenario, i.e., a second-order transition with a new critical universality and a BKT transition. We found that this new phase transition is realized in spin-crossover systems on a triangular lattice with an antiferromagnetic short-range interaction. At the low-temperature transition the elastic interaction plays as a ferromagnetic infinite-range interaction and encourages the breaking of $Z_2$ symmetry between high-spin rich and low-spin rich states.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figure

Characterization of topological phase transitions via topological properties of transition points

We study topological properties of phase transition points of topological quantum phase transitions by assigning a topological invariant defined on a closed circle or surface surrounding the phase transition point in the parameter space of momentum and transition driving parameter. By applying our scheme to the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model and Haldane model, we demonstrate that the topological phase transition can be well characterized by the defined topological invariant of the transition point, which reflects the change of topological invariants of topologically different phases across the phase transition point.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Symmetric-Asymmetric transition in mixtures of Bose-Einstein condensates

We propose a new kind of quantum phase transition in phase separated mixtures of Bose-Einstein condensates. In this transition, the distribution of the two components changes from a symmetric to an asymmetric shape. We discuss the nature of the phase transition, the role of interface tension and the phase diagram. The symmetric to asymmetric transition is the simplest quantum phase transition that one can imagine. Careful study of this problem should provide us new insight into this burgeoning field of discovery.Comment: 6 pages, 3 eps figure

Magnetic Fields Produced by Phase Transition Bubbles in the Electroweak Phase Transition

The electroweak phase transition, if proceeding through nucleation and growth of bubbles, should generate large scale turbulent flow, which in turn generates magnetic turbulence and hence magnetic fields on the scale of turbulent flow. We discuss the seeding of this turbulent field by the motion of the dipole charge layers in the phase transition bubble walls, and estimate the strength of the produced fields.Comment: Revtex, 14 pages, 3 figures appended as uuencoded postscript-fil

Winding numbers of phase transition points for one-dimensional topological systems

We study topological properties of phase transition points of one-dimensional topological quantum phase transitions by assigning winding numbers defined on closed circles around the gap closing points in the parameter space of momentum and a transition driving parameter, which overcomes the problem of ill definition of winding numbers on the transition points. By applying our scheme to the extended Kitaev model and extended Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, we demonstrate that the topological phase transition can be well characterized by winding numbers of transition points, which reflect the change of the winding number of topologically different phases across the phase transition points.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Reentrant phase transition of Born-Infeld-dilaton black holes

We explore a novel reentrant phase transition of four-dimensional Born-Infeld-dilaton black hole in which the first order phase transition modify into a zeroth order phase transition below the critical point. Working in the extended phase space with regarding the cosmological constant as a pressure, we study the reentrant behavior of phase transition in the canonical ensemble. We show that these black holes enjoy a zeroth order intermediate-small black hole phase transition as well as a first order phase transition between small and large black holes for a narrow range of temperatures and pressures. We also find that the standard first order small-large black hole phase transition can modify into a zeroth order type. This zeroth order phase transition stands between the critical point and the first order phase transition region. We discuss the significant effect of the scalar field (dilaton) on the mentioned interesting treatment.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables. A section added. Accepted in EPJ