290 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
Collapse and Folding of Pressurized Rings in Two Dimensions
Hydrostatically pressurized circular rings confined to two dimensions (or cylinders constrained to have only z-independent deformations) undergo Euler-type buckling when the outside pressure exceeds a critical value. We perform a stability analysis of rings with arclength-dependent bending moduli and determine how weakened bending modulus segments affect the buckling critical pressure. Rings with a fourfold symmetric modulation are particularly susceptible to collapse. In addition we study the initial postbuckling stages of the pressurized rings to determine possible ring folding patterns.Engineering and Applied SciencesPhysicsOther Research Uni
Enhancement by polydispersity of the biaxial nematic phase in a mixture of hard rods and plates
The phase diagram of a polydisperse mixture of uniaxial rod-like and
plate-like hard parallelepipeds is determined for aspect ratios and
15. All particles have equal volume and polydispersity is introduced in a
highly symmetric way. The corresponding binary mixture is known to have a
biaxial phase for , but to be unstable against demixing into two
uniaxial nematics for . We find that the phase diagram for
is qualitatively similar to that of the binary mixture, regardless
the amount of polydispersity, while for a sufficient amount of
polydispersity stabilizes the biaxial phase. This provides some clues for the
design of an experiment in which this long searched biaxial phase could be
observed.Comment: 4 pages, 5 eps figure files, uses RevTeX 4 styl
Critical Hysteresis from Random Anisotropy
Critical hysteresis in ferromagnets is investigated through a -component
spin model with random anisotropies, more prevalent experimentally than the
random fields used in most theoretical studies. Metastability, and the
tensorial nature of anisotropy, dictate its physics. Generically, random field
Ising criticality occurs, but other universality classes exist. In particular,
proximity to criticality may explain the discrepancy between
experiment and earlier theories. The uniaxial anisotropy constant, which can be
controlled in magnetostrictive materials by an applied stress, emerges as a
natural tuning parameter.Comment: four pages, revtex4; minor corrections in the text and typos
corrected (published version
Theoretical Study on Superconductivity in Boron-Doped Diamond
We consider superconductivity in boron (B) doped diamond using a simplified
model for the valence band of diamond. We treat the effects of substitutional
disorder of B ions by the coherent potential approximation (CPA) and those of
the attractive force between holes by the ladder approximation under the
assumption of instantaneous interaction with the Debye cutoff. We thereby
calculate the quasiparticle life time, the evolution of the single-particle
spectra due to doping, and the effect of disorder on the superconducting
critical temperature . We in particular compare our results with those for
supercell calculations to see the role of disorder, which turns out to be of
crucial importance to .Comment: 9 pages, 13 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jpn., Errors in
embedded eps figure files have been correcte
Observation of a biaxial nematic phase in potassium laurate-1-decanol-water mixtures
[[abstract]]The phase diagram of the ternary system potassium laurate-1-decanol-D2O was studied over concentration ranges where nematic phases are likely to occur. Two uniaxial nematic phases which are separated by a biaxial nematic phase are found. In limited concentration range the following phase sequence may be observed reversibly on heating and on cooling: isotropic-uniaxial nematic (positive optical anisotropy)-biaxial nematic-uniaxial nematic (negative optical anisotropy)-biaxial nematic-uniaxial nematic (positive optical anisotropy)-isotropic.[[incitationindex]]SCI[[booktype]]紙本[[booktype]]電子
Theory of Banana Liquid Crystal Phases and Phase Transitions
We study phases and phase transitions that can take place in the newly
discovered banana (bow-shaped or bent-core) liquid crystal molecules. We show
that to completely characterize phases exhibited by such bent-core molecules a
third-rank tensor order parameter is necessary in addition to the
vector and the nematic (second-rank) tensor order parameters. We present an
exhaustive list of possible liquid phases, characterizing them by their
space-symmetry group and order parameters, and catalog the universality classes
of the corresponding phase transitions that we expect to take place in such
bent-core molecular liquid crystals. In addition to the conventional
liquid-crystal phases such as the nematic phase, we predict the existence of
novel liquid phases, including the spontaneously chiral nematic
and chiral polar phases, the orientationally-ordered but
optically isotropic tetrahedratic phase, and a novel nematic phase
with symmetry that is neither uniaxial nor biaxial. Interestingly, the
Isotropic-Tetrahedratic transition is {\em continuous} in mean-field theory,
but is likely driven first-order by thermal fluctuations. We conclude with a
discussion of smectic analogs of these phases and their experimental
signatures.Comment: 28 pgs. RevTex, 32 eps figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Recommended from our members
Foldable structures and the natural design of pollen grains
Upon release from the anther, pollen grains of angiosperm flowers are exposed to a dry environment and dehydrate. To survive this process, pollen grains possess a variety of physiological and structural adaptations. Perhaps the most striking of these adaptations is the ability of the pollen wall to fold onto itself to prevent further desiccation. Roger P. Wodehouse coined the term harmomegathy for this folding process in recognition of the critical role it plays in the survival of the pollen grain. There is still, however, no quantitative theory that explains how the structure of the pollen wall contributes to harmomegathy. Here we demonstrate that simple geometrical and mechanical principles explain how wall structure guides pollen grains toward distinct folding pathways. We found that the presence of axially elongated apertures of high compliance is critical for achieving a predictable and reversible folding pattern. Moreover, the intricate sculpturing of the wall assists pollen closure by preventing mirror buckling of the surface. These results constitute quantitative structure-function relationships for pollen harmomegathy and provide a framework to elucidate the functional significance of the very diverse pollen morphologies observed in angiosperms.Physic
Structural, electronic, and dynamical properties of amorphous gallium arsenide: a comparison between two topological models
We present a detailed study of the effect of local chemical ordering on the
structural, electronic, and dynamical properties of amorphous gallium arsenide.
Using the recently-proposed ``activation-relaxation technique'' and empirical
potentials, we have constructed two 216-atom tetrahedral continuous random
networks with different topological properties, which were further relaxed
using tight-binding molecular dynamics. The first network corresponds to the
traditional, amorphous, Polk-type, network, randomly decorated with Ga and As
atoms. The second is an amorphous structure with a minimum of wrong (homopolar)
bonds, and therefore a minimum of odd-membered atomic rings, and thus
corresponds to the Connell-Temkin model. By comparing the structural,
electronic, and dynamical properties of these two models, we show that the
Connell-Temkin network is energetically favored over Polk, but that most
properties are little affected by the differences in topology. We conclude that
most indirect experimental evidence for the presence (or absence) of wrong
bonds is much weaker than previously believed and that only direct structural
measurements, i.e., of such quantities as partial radial distribution
functions, can provide quantitative information on these defects in a-GaAs.Comment: 10 pages, 7 ps figures with eps
Collapse and folding of pressurized rings in two dimensions
Hydrostatically pressurized circular rings confined to two dimensions (or
cylinders constrained to have only z-independent deformations) undergo Euler
type buckling when the outside pressure exceeds a critical value. We perform a
stability analysis of rings with arc-length dependent bending moduli and
determine how weakened bending modulus segments affect the buckling critical
pressure. Rings with a 4-fold symmetric modulation are particularly susceptible
to collapse. In addition we study the initial post-buckling stages of the
pressurized rings to determine possible ring folding patterns
Fast Algorithm for Finding the Eigenvalue Distribution of Very Large Matrices
A theoretical analysis is given of the equation of motion method, due to
Alben et al., to compute the eigenvalue distribution (density of states) of
very large matrices. The salient feature of this method is that for matrices of
the kind encountered in quantum physics the memory and CPU requirements of this
method scale linearly with the dimension of the matrix. We derive a rigorous
estimate of the statistical error, supporting earlier observations that the
computational efficiency of this approach increases with matrix size. We use
this method and an imaginary-time version of it to compute the energy and the
specific heat of three different, exactly solvable, spin-1/2 models and compare
with the exact results to study the dependence of the statistical errors on
sample and matrix size.Comment: 24 pages, 24 figure
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