15 research outputs found
Colligative properties of solutions: II. Vanishing concentrations
We continue our study of colligative properties of solutions initiated in
math-ph/0407034. We focus on the situations where, in a system of linear size
, the concentration and the chemical potential scale like and
, respectively. We find that there exists a critical value \xit such
that no phase separation occurs for \xi\le\xit while, for \xi>\xit, the two
phases of the solvent coexist for an interval of values of . Moreover, phase
separation begins abruptly in the sense that a macroscopic fraction of the
system suddenly freezes (or melts) forming a crystal (or droplet) of the
complementary phase when reaches a critical value. For certain values of
system parameters, under ``frozen'' boundary conditions, phase separation also
ends abruptly in the sense that the equilibrium droplet grows continuously with
increasing and then suddenly jumps in size to subsume the entire system.
Our findings indicate that the onset of freezing-point depression is in fact a
surface phenomenon.Comment: 27 pages, 1 fig; see also math-ph/0407034 (both to appear in JSP
State Transitions and the Continuum Limit for a 2D Interacting, Self-Propelled Particle System
We study a class of swarming problems wherein particles evolve dynamically
via pairwise interaction potentials and a velocity selection mechanism. We find
that the swarming system undergoes various changes of state as a function of
the self-propulsion and interaction potential parameters. In this paper, we
utilize a procedure which, in a definitive way, connects a class of
individual-based models to their continuum formulations and determine criteria
for the validity of the latter. H-stability of the interaction potential plays
a fundamental role in determining both the validity of the continuum
approximation and the nature of the aggregation state transitions. We perform a
linear stability analysis of the continuum model and compare the results to the
simulations of the individual-based one
Colligative properties of solutions: I. Fixed concentrations
Using the formalism of rigorous statistical mechanics, we study the phenomena
of phase separation and freezing-point depression upon freezing of solutions.
Specifically, we devise an Ising-based model of a solvent-solute system and
show that, in the ensemble with a fixed amount of solute, a macroscopic phase
separation occurs in an interval of values of the chemical potential of the
solvent. The boundaries of the phase separation domain in the phase diagram are
characterized and shown to asymptotically agree with the formulas used in
heuristic analyses of freezing point depression. The limit of infinitesimal
concentrations is described in a subsequent paper.Comment: 28 pages, 1 fig; see also math-ph/0407035 (both to appear in JSP
Mean-field driven first-order phase transitions in systems with long-range interactions
We consider a class of spin systems on with vector valued spins
(\bS_x) that interact via the pair-potentials J_{x,y} \bS_x\cdot\bS_y. The
interactions are generally spread-out in the sense that the 's exhibit
either exponential or power-law fall-off. Under the technical condition of
reflection positivity and for sufficiently spread out interactions, we prove
that the model exhibits a first-order phase transition whenever the associated
mean-field theory signals such a transition. As a consequence, e.g., in
dimensions , we can finally provide examples of the 3-state Potts model
with spread-out, exponentially decaying interactions, which undergoes a
first-order phase transition as the temperature varies. Similar transitions are
established in dimensions for power-law decaying interactions and in
high dimensions for next-nearest neighbor couplings. In addition, we also
investigate the limit of infinitely spread-out interactions. Specifically, we
show that once the mean-field theory is in a unique ``state,'' then in any
sequence of translation-invariant Gibbs states various observables converge to
their mean-field values and the states themselves converge to a product
measure.Comment: 57 pages; uses a (modified) jstatphys class fil