26 research outputs found
The Formation and Propagation of Fronts at the Electric Field Induced Bend Freedericksz Transition
Wetensch. publicatieFaculteit der Wiskunde en Natuurwetenschappe
Hydrogen-bonded Silica Gels Dispersed in a Smectic Liquid Crystal: A Random Field XY System
The effect on the nematic to smectic-A transition in octylcyanobiphenyl (8CB)
due to dispersions of hydrogen-bonded silica (aerosil) particles is
characterized with high-resolution x-ray scattering. The particles form weak
gels in 8CB creating a quenched disorder that replaces the transition with the
growth of short range smectic correlations. The correlations include thermal
critical fluctuations that dominate at high temperatures and a second
contribution that quantitatively matches the static fluctuations of a random
field system and becomes important at low temperatures.Comment: 10 pages, 4 postscript figures as separate file
Effects of Pore Walls and Randomness on Phase Transitions in Porous Media
We study spin models within the mean field approximation to elucidate the
topology of the phase diagrams of systems modeling the liquid-vapor transition
and the separation of He--He mixtures in periodic porous media. These
topologies are found to be identical to those of the corresponding random field
and random anisotropy spin systems with a bimodal distribution of the
randomness. Our results suggest that the presence of walls (periodic or
otherwise) are a key factor determining the nature of the phase diagram in
porous media.Comment: REVTeX, 11 eps figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Probing helium interfaces with light scattering : from fluid mechanics to statistical physics
We have investigated the formation of helium droplets in two physical
situations. In the first one, droplets are atomised from superfluid or normal
liquid by a fast helium vapour flow. In the second, droplets of normal liquid
are formed inside porous glasses during the process of helium condensation. The
context, aims, and results of these experiments are reviewed, with focus on the
specificity of light scattering by helium. In particular, we discuss how, for
different reasons, the closeness to unity of the index of refraction of helium
allows in both cases to minimise the problem of multiple scattering and obtain
results which it would not be possible to get using other fluids.Comment: 21 page
Observation of Events with an Energetic Forward Neutron in Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERA
In deep inelastic neutral current scattering of positrons and protons at the center of mass energy of 300 GeV, we observe, with the ZEUS detector, events with a high energy neutron produced at very small scattering angles with respect to the proton direction. The events constitute a fixed fraction of the deep inelastic, neutral current event sample independent of Bjorken x and Q2 in the range 3 · 10-4 \u3c xBJ \u3c 6 · 10-3 and 10 \u3c Q2 \u3c 100 GeV2
Structural study of proton-conducting fluorous block copolymer membranes
cited By 64International audienceSmall-angle neutron scattering with contrast variation and transmission electron microscopy have been used to investigate the nanostructure of films cast from diblock copolymer solutions. The polymers are composed of a fluorocarbon block and a sulfonated polystyrene block, where the length and degree of sulfonation of the polystyrene segment have been controlled. This study shows that these films possess structure at two length scales: phase separation at length scales of the order of 40 nm due to the immiscibility of the two polymer blocks and substructure within the sulfonated polystyrene domains due to segregation of the hydrated ionic groups and the hydrophobic polystyrene chains. The longer length scale morphology is well-ordered for diblocks containing long and partially sulfonated polystyrene blocks whereas the short and fully sulfonated polystyrene blocks give rise to a more disordered structure. © 2006 American Chemical Society