358 research outputs found
Pores in Bilayer Membranes of Amphiphilic Molecules: Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics Simulations Compared with Simple Mesoscopic Models
We investigate pores in fluid membranes by molecular dynamics simulations of
an amphiphile-solvent mixture, using a molecular coarse-grained model. The
amphiphilic membranes self-assemble into a lamellar stack of amphiphilic
bilayers separated by solvent layers. We focus on the particular case of
tension less membranes, in which pores spontaneously appear because of thermal
fluctuations. Their spatial distribution is similar to that of a random set of
repulsive hard discs. The size and shape distribution of individual pores can
be described satisfactorily by a simple mesoscopic model, which accounts only
for a pore independent core energy and a line tension penalty at the pore
edges. In particular, the pores are not circular: their shapes are fractal and
have the same characteristics as those of two dimensional ring polymers.
Finally, we study the size-fluctuation dynamics of the pores, and compare the
time evolution of their contour length to a random walk in a linear potential
Critical behavior of frustrated systems: Monte Carlo simulations versus Renormalization Group
We study the critical behavior of frustrated systems by means of Pade-Borel
resummed three-loop renormalization-group expansions and numerical Monte Carlo
simulations. Amazingly, for six-component spins where the transition is second
order, both approaches disagree. This unusual situation is analyzed both from
the point of view of the convergence of the resummed series and from the
possible relevance of non perturbative effects.Comment: RevTex, 10 pages, 3 Postscript figure
The critical behavior of frustrated spin models with noncollinear order
We study the critical behavior of frustrated spin models with noncollinear
order, including stacked triangular antiferromagnets and helimagnets. For this
purpose we compute the field-theoretic expansions at fixed dimension to six
loops and determine their large-order behavior. For the physically relevant
cases of two and three components, we show the existence of a new stable fixed
point that corresponds to the conjectured chiral universality class. This
contradicts previous three-loop field-theoretical results but is in agreement
with experiments.Comment: 4 pages, RevTe
Monte Carlo renormalization group study of the Heisenberg and XY antiferromagnet on the stacked triangular lattice and the chiral model
With the help of the improved Monte Carlo renormalization-group scheme, we
numerically investigate the renormalization group flow of the antiferromagnetic
Heisenberg and XY spin model on the stacked triangular lattice (STA-model) and
its effective Hamiltonian, 2N-component chiral model which is used in
the field-theoretical studies. We find that the XY-STA model with the lattice
size exhibits clear first-order behavior. We also
find that the renormalization-group flow of STA model is well reproduced by the
chiral model, and that there are no chiral fixed point of
renormalization-group flow for N=2 and 3 cases. This result indicates that the
Heisenberg-STA model also undergoes first-order transition.Comment: v1:15 pages, 15 figures v2:updated references v3:added comments on
the higher order irrelevant scaling variables v4:added results of larger
sizes v5:final version to appear in J.Phys.Soc.Jpn Vol.72, No.
Testing for Features in the Primordial Power Spectrum
Well-known causality arguments show that events occurring during or at the
end of inflation, associated with reheating or preheating, could contribute a
blue component to the spectrum of primordial curvature perturbations, with the
dependence k^3. We explore the possibility that they could be observably large
in CMB, LSS, and Lyman-alpha data. We find that a k^3 component with a cutoff
at some maximum k can modestly improve the fits (Delta chi^2=2.0, 5.4) of the
low multipoles (l ~ 10 - 50) or the second peak (l ~ 540) of the CMB angular
spectrum when the three-year WMAP data are used. Moreover, the results from
WMAP are consistent with the CBI, ACBAR, 2dFGRS, and SDSS data when they are
included in the analysis. Including the SDSS galaxy clustering power spectrum,
we find weak positive evidence for the k^3 component at the level of Delta chi'
= 2.4, with the caveat that the nonlinear evolution of the power spectrum may
not be properly treated in the presence of the k^3 distortion. To investigate
the high-k regime, we use the Lyman-alpha forest data (LUQAS, Croft et al., and
SDSS Lyman-alpha); here we find evidence at the level Delta chi^2' = 3.8.
Considering that there are two additional free parameters in the model, the
above results do not give a strong evidence for features; however, they show
that surprisingly large bumps are not ruled out. We give constraints on the
ratio between the k^3 component and the nearly scale-invariant component, r_3 <
1.5, over the range of wave numbers 0.0023/Mpc < k < 8.2/Mpc. We also discuss
theoretical models which could lead to the k^3 effect, including ordinary
hybrid inflation and double D-term inflation models. We show that the
well-motivated k^3 component is also a good representative of the generic
spikelike feature in the primordial perturbation power spectrum.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures; added new section on theoretical motivation for
k^3 term, and discussion of double D-term hybrid inflation models; title
changed, added a new section discussing the generic spikelike features,
published in IJMP
Charge orderings in the atomic limit of the extended Hubbard model
The extended Hubbard model in the atomic limit (AL-EHM) on a square lattice
with periodic boundary conditions is studied with use of the Monte Carlo (MC)
method. Within the grand canonical ensemble the phase and order-order
boundaries for charge orderings are obtained. The phase diagrams include three
types of charge ordered phases and the nonordered phase. The system exhibits
very rich structure and shows unusual multicritical behavior. In the limiting
case of tij = 0, the EHM is equivalent to the pseudospin model with single-ion
anisotropy 1/2U, exchange interaction W in an effective magnetic field
(mu-1/2U-zW). This classical spin model is analyzed using the MC method for the
canonical ensemble. The phase diagram is compared with the known results for
the Blume-Capel model.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure
Critical behavior of O(2)xO(N) symmetric models
We investigate the controversial issue of the existence of universality
classes describing critical phenomena in three-dimensional statistical systems
characterized by a matrix order parameter with symmetry O(2)xO(N) and
symmetry-breaking pattern O(2)xO(N) -> O(2)xO(N-2). Physical realizations of
these systems are, for example, frustrated spin models with noncollinear order.
Starting from the field-theoretical Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson Hamiltonian, we
consider the massless critical theory and the minimal-subtraction scheme
without epsilon expansion. The three-dimensional analysis of the corresponding
five-loop expansions shows the existence of a stable fixed point for N=2 and
N=3, confirming recent field-theoretical results based on a six-loop expansion
in the alternative zero-momentum renormalization scheme defined in the massive
disordered phase.
In addition, we report numerical Monte Carlo simulations of a class of
three-dimensional O(2)xO(2)-symmetric lattice models. The results provide
further support to the existence of the O(2)xO(2) universality class predicted
by the field-theoretical analyses.Comment: 45 pages, 20 figs, some additions, Phys.Rev.B in pres
Flat Energy-Histogram Simulation of the Phase Transition in an Ising Fully Frustrated Lattice
We show in this paper the results on the phase transition of the so-called
fully frustrated simple cubic lattice with the Ising spin model. We use here
the Monte Carlo method with the flat energy-histogram Wang-Landau technique
which is very powerful to detect weak first-order phase transition. We show
that the phase transition is clearly of first order, providing a definite
answer to a question raised 25 years ago.Comment: Submitted for publicatio
Critical thermodynamics of three-dimensional chiral model for N > 3
The critical behavior of the three-dimensional -vector chiral model is
studied for arbitrary . The known six-loop renormalization-group (RG)
expansions are resummed using the Borel transformation combined with the
conformal mapping and Pad\'e approximant techniques. Analyzing the fixed point
location and the structure of RG flows, it is found that two marginal values of
exist which separate domains of continuous chiral phase transitions and where such
transitions are first-order. Our calculations yield and
. For the structure of RG flows is identical to
that given by the and 1/N expansions with the chiral fixed point
being a stable node. For the chiral fixed point turns out to be a
focus having no generic relation to the stable fixed point seen at small
and large . In this domain, containing the physical values and , phase trajectories approach the fixed point in a spiral-like
manner giving rise to unusual crossover regimes which may imitate varying
(scattered) critical exponents seen in numerous physical and computer
experiments.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure
Landau Expansion for the Kugel-Khomskii Hamiltonian
The Kugel-Khomskii (KK) Hamiltonian for the titanates describes spin and
orbital superexchange interactions between ions in an ideal perovskite
structure in which the three orbitals are degenerate in energy and
electron hopping is constrained by cubic site symmetry. In this paper we
implement a variational approach to mean-field theory in which each site, ,
has its own single-site density matrix \rhov(i), where , the
number of allowed single-particle states, is 6 (3 orbital times 2 spin states).
The variational free energy from this 35 parameter density matrix is shown to
exhibit the unusual symmetries noted previously which lead to a
wavevector-dependent susceptibility for spins in orbitals which is
dispersionless in the -direction. Thus, for the cubic KK model
itself, mean-field theory does not provide wavevector `selection', in agreement
with rigorous symmetry arguments. We consider the effect of including various
perturbations. When spin-orbit interactions are introduced, the susceptibility
has dispersion in all directions in -space, but the resulting
antiferromagnetic mean-field state is degenerate with respect to global
rotation of the staggered spin, implying that the spin-wave spectrum is
gapless. This possibly surprising conclusion is also consistent with rigorous
symmetry arguments. When next-nearest-neighbor hopping is included, staggered
moments of all orbitals appear, but the sum of these moments is zero, yielding
an exotic state with long-range order without long-range spin order. The effect
of a Hund's rule coupling of sufficient strength is to produce a state with
orbital order.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. B (2003
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