4,247 research outputs found
Replica-symmetric solutions of a dilute Ising ferromagnet in a random field
We use the replica method in order to obtain an expression for the
variational free energy of an Ising ferromagnet on a Viana-Bray lattice in the
presence of random external fields. Introducing a global order parameter, in
the replica-symmetric context, the problem is reduced to the analysis of the
solutions of a nonlinear integral equation. At zero temperature, and under some
restrictions on the form of the random fields, we are able to perform a
detailed analysis of stability of the replica-symmetric solutions. In contrast
to the behaviour of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model for a spin glass in a
uniform field, the paramagnetic solution is fully stable in a sufficiently
large random field
Polydispersity Effects in the Dynamics and Stability of Bubbling Flows
The occurrence of swarms of small bubbles in a variety of industrial systems
enhances their performance. However, the effects that size polydispersity may
produce on the stability of kinematic waves, the gain factor, mean bubble
velocity, kinematic and dynamic wave velocities is, to our knowledge, not yet
well established. We found that size polydispersity enhances the stability of a
bubble column by a factor of about 23% as a function of frequency and for a
particular type of bubble column. In this way our model predicts effects that
might be verified experimentally but this, however, remain to be assessed. Our
results reinforce the point of view advocated in this work in the sense that a
description of a bubble column based on the concept of randomness of a bubble
cloud and average properties of the fluid motion, may be a useful approach that
has not been exploited in engineering systems.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, presented at the 3rd NEXT-SigmaPhi International
Conference, 13-18 August, 2005, Kolymbari, Cret
Phase diagram of a model for a binary mixture of nematic molecules on a Bethe lattice
We investigate the phase diagram of a discrete version of the Maier-Saupe
model with the inclusion of additional degrees of freedom to mimic a
distribution of rodlike and disklike molecules. Solutions of this problem on a
Bethe lattice come from the analysis of the fixed points of a set of nonlinear
recursion relations. Besides the fixed points associated with isotropic and
uniaxial nematic structures, there is also a fixed point associated with a
biaxial nematic structure. Due to the existence of large overlaps of the
stability regions, we resorted to a scheme to calculate the free energy of
these structures deep in the interior of a large Cayley tree. Both
thermodynamic and dynamic-stability analyses rule out the presence of a biaxial
phase, in qualitative agreement with previous mean-field results
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