19 research outputs found
The Structure of TGB Phases
We study the transition from the cholesteric phase to two TGB phases near
the upper critical twist : the Renn-Lubensky TGB phase, with layer
normal rotating in a plane perpendicular to the pitch axis, and the Bordeaux
TGB phase, with the layer normal rotating on a cone parallel to the pitch
axis. We calculate properties, including order-parameter profiles, of both
phases.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Submitted to Physical Review E, Rapid
Communications, September 5, 2003; Revised manuscript (to the paper submitted
on March 18, 2003, cond-mat/0303365)that includes an important missing
reference and presents an improved analysis of a generalized mode
Pascal Principle for Diffusion-Controlled Trapping Reactions
"All misfortune of man comes from the fact that he does not stay peacefully
in his room", has once asserted Blaise Pascal. In the present paper we evoke
this statement as the "Pascal principle" in regard to the problem of survival
of an "A" particle, which performs a lattice random walk in presence of a
concentration of randomly moving traps "B", and gets annihilated upon
encounters with any of them. We prove here that at sufficiently large times for
both perfect and imperfect trapping reactions, for arbitrary spatial dimension
"d" and for a rather general class of random walks, the "A" particle survival
probability is less than or equal to the survival probability of an immobile
target in the presence of randomly moving traps.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, appearing in PR
Electromagnetic characteristics of bilayer quantum Hall systems in the presence of interlayer coherence and tunneling
The electromagnetic characteristics of bilayer quantum Hall systems in the
presence of interlayer coherence and tunneling are studied by means of a
pseudospin-texture effective theory and an algebraic framework of the
single-mode approximation, with emphasis on clarifying the nature of the
low-lying neutral collective mode responsible for interlayer tunneling
phenomena. A long-wavelength effective theory, consisting of the collective
mode as well as the cyclotron modes, is constructed. It is seen explicitly from
the electromagnetic response that gauge invariance is kept exact, this
implying, in particular, the absence of the Meissner effect in bilayer systems.
Special emphasis is placed on exploring the advantage of looking into quantum
Hall systems through their response; in particular, subtleties inherent to the
standard Chern-Simons theories are critically examined.Comment: 9 pages, Revtex, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Nondissipative Drag Conductance as a Topological Quantum Number
We show in this paper that the boundary condition averaged nondissipative
drag conductance of two coupled mesoscopic rings with no tunneling, evaluated
in a particular many-particle eigenstate, is a topological invariant
characterized by a Chern integer. Physical implications of this observation are
discussed.Comment: 4 pages, no figure. Title modified and significant revision made to
the text. Final version appeared in PR
Phase Behavior of Bent-Core Molecules
Recently, a new class of smectic liquid crystal phases (SmCP phases)
characterized by the spontaneous formation of macroscopic chiral domains from
achiral bent-core molecules has been discovered. We have carried out Monte
Carlo simulations of a minimal hard spherocylinder dimer model to investigate
the role of excluded volume interations in determining the phase behavior of
bent-core materials and to probe the molecular origins of polar and chiral
symmetry breaking. We present the phase diagram as a function of pressure or
density and dimer opening angle . With decreasing , a transition
from a nonpolar to a polar smectic phase is observed near ,
and the nematic phase becomes thermodynamically unstable for . No chiral smectic or biaxial nematic phases were found.Comment: 4 pages Revtex, 3 eps figures (included
Lattice theory of trapping reactions with mobile species
We present a stochastic lattice theory describing the kinetic behavior of
trapping reactions , in which both the and particles
perform an independent stochastic motion on a regular hypercubic lattice. Upon
an encounter of an particle with any of the particles, is
annihilated with a finite probability; finite reaction rate is taken into
account by introducing a set of two-state random variables - "gates", imposed
on each particle, such that an open (closed) gate corresponds to a reactive
(passive) state. We evaluate here a formal expression describing the time
evolution of the particle survival probability, which generalizes our
previous results. We prove that for quite a general class of random motion of
the species involved in the reaction process, for infinite or finite number of
traps, and for any time , the particle survival probability is always
larger in case when stays immobile, than in situations when it moves.Comment: 12 pages, appearing in PR
Conductance oscillations in strongly correlated fractional quantum Hall line junctions
We present a detailed theory of transport through line junctions formed by
counterpropagating single-branch fractional-quantum-Hall edge channels having
different filling factors. Intriguing transport properties are exhibited when
strong Coulomb interactions between electrons from the two edges are present.
Such strongly correlated line junctions can be classified according to the
value of an effective line-junction filling factor n that is the inverse of an
even integer. Interactions turn out to affect transport most importantly for
n=1/2 and n=1/4. A particularly interesting case is n=1/4 corresponding to,
e.g., a junction of edge channels having filling factor 1 and 1/5,
respectively. We predict its differential tunneling conductance to oscillate as
a function of voltage. This behavior directly reflects the existence of novel
Majorana-fermion quasiparticle excitations in this type of line junction.
Experimental accessibility of such systems in current cleaved-edge overgrown
samples enables direct testing of our theoretical predictions.Comment: 2 figures, 10 pages, RevTex4, v2: added second figure for clarit
Influence of thermal fluctuations on quantum phase transitions in one-dimensional disordered systems: Charge density waves and Luttinger liquids
The low temperature phase diagram of 1D weakly disordered quantum systems
like charge or spin density waves and Luttinger liquids is studied by a
\emph{full finite temperature} renormalization group (RG) calculation. For
vanishing quantum fluctuations this approach is amended by an \emph{exact}
solution in the case of strong disorder and by a mapping onto the \emph{Burgers
equation with noise} in the case of weak disorder, respectively. At \emph{zero}
temperature we reproduce the quantum phase transition between a pinned
(localized) and an unpinned (delocalized) phase for weak and strong quantum
fluctuations, respectively, as found previously by Fukuyama or Giamarchi and
Schulz.
At \emph{finite} temperatures the localization transition is suppressed: the
random potential is wiped out by thermal fluctuations on length scales larger
than the thermal de Broglie wave length of the phason excitations. The
existence of a zero temperature transition is reflected in a rich cross-over
phase diagram of the correlation functions. In particular we find four
different scaling regions: a \emph{classical disordered}, a \emph{quantum
disordered}, a \emph{quantum critical} and a \emph{thermal} region. The results
can be transferred directly to the discussion of the influence of disorder in
superfluids. Finally we extend the RG calculation to the treatment of a
commensurate lattice potential. Applications to related systems are discussed
as well.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure
Double-Layer Systems at Zero Magnetic Field
We investigate theoretically the effects of intralayer and interlayer
exchange in biased double-layer electron and hole systems, in the absence of a
magnetic field. We use a variational Hartree-Fock-like approximation to analyze
the effects of layer separation, layer density, tunneling, and applied gate
voltages on the layer densities and on interlayer phase coherence. In agreement
with earlier work, we find that for very small layer separations and low layer
densities, an interlayer-correlated ground state possessing spontaneous
interlayer coherence (SILC) is obtained, even in the absence of interlayer
tunneling. In contrast to earlier work, we find that as a function of total
density, there exist four, rather than three, distinct noncrystalline phases
for balanced double-layer systems without interlayer tunneling. The newly
identified phase exists for a narrow range of densities and has three
components and slightly unequal layer densities, with one layer being spin
polarized, and the other unpolarized. An additional two-component phase is also
possible in the presence of sufficiently strong bias or tunneling. The
lowest-density SILC phase is the fully spin- and pseudospin-polarized
``one-component'' phase discussed by Zheng {\it et al.} [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 55},
4506 (1997)]. We argue that this phase will produce a finite interlayer Coulomb
drag at zero temperature due to the SILC. We calculate the particle densities
in each layer as a function of the gate voltage and total particle density, and
find that interlayer exchange can reduce or prevent abrupt transfers of charge
between the two layers. We also calculate the effect of interlayer exchange on
the interlayer capacitance.Comment: 35 pages, 19 figures included. To appear in PR