Stability of Quasicrystals Composed of Soft Isotropic Particles

Quasicrystals whose building blocks are of mesoscopic rather than atomic scale have recently been discovered in several soft-matter systems. Contrary to metallurgic quasicrystals whose source of stability remains a question of great debate to this day, we argue that the stability of certain soft-matter quasicrystals can be directly explained by examining a coarse-grained free energy for a system of soft isotropic particles. We show, both theoretically and numerically, that the stability can be attributed to the existence of two natural length scales in the pair potential, combined with effective three-body interactions arising from entropy. Our newly gained understanding of the stability of soft quasicrystals allows us to point at their region of stability in the phase diagram, and thereby may help control the self-assembly of quasicrystals and a variety of other desired structures in future experimental realizations.Comment: Revised abstract, more detailed explanations, and better images of the numerical minimization of the free energ

Self-Diffusion in Random-Tiling Quasicrystals

The first explicit realization of the conjecture that phason dynamics leads to self-diffusion in quasicrystals is presented for the icosahedral Ammann tilings. On short time scales, the transport is found to be subdiffusive with the exponent $\beta\approx0.57(1)$, while on long time scales it is consistent with normal diffusion that is up to an order of magnitude larger than in the typical room temperature vacancy-assisted self-diffusion. No simple finite-size scaling is found, suggesting anomalous corrections to normal diffusion, or existence of at least two independent length scales.Comment: 11 pages + 2 figures, COMPRESSED postscript figures available by anonymous ftp to black_hole.physics.ubc.ca directory outgoing/diffuse (use bi for binary mode to transfer), REVTeX 3.0, CTP-TAMU 21/9

Bethe Ansatz solution of a decagonal rectangle triangle random tiling

A random tiling of rectangles and triangles displaying a decagonal phase is solved by Bethe Ansatz. Analogously to the solutions of the dodecagonal square triangle and the octagonal rectangle triangle tiling an exact expression for the maximum of the entropy is found.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, some remarks added and typos correcte

Universalities in One-electron Properties of Limit Quasi-periodic Lattices

We investigate one-electron properties of one-dimensional self-similar structures called limit quasi-periodic lattices. The trace map of such a lattice is nonconservative in contrast to the quasi-periodic case, and we can determine the structure of its attractor. It allows us to obtain the three new features of the present system: 1) The multi-fractal characters of the energy spectra are {\it universal}. 2) The supports of the $f(\alpha)$-spectra extend over the whole unit interval, $[0, 1]$. 3) There exist marginal critical states.Comment: 4 pages, 2figure

Open Ground Collections of Saint Petersburg Botanic Garden for the Benefit of Botanic and Environmental Education

Botanic gardens with their rich collections and scientific resources have a unique potential that attracts the attention of the society to the problems of preserving biodiversity, ensuring environmental education, conserving nature, providing leisure, serving the place for relaxation and entertainment. One of the oldest Botanic gardens of Russia is the Saint Petersburg Botanic Garden of the Komarov Botanic Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences demonstrates the experience of utilizing the open ground collections for Botanic and environmental education. The experts share various aspects of interaction between a Botanic garden and its visitors. The paper provides examples of excursions and other forms of work on the open ground. The paper analyzes the experience of foreign colleagues related to the motivation for visiting Botanic gardens by different age and social groups. The authors provide data of sociological surveys of visitors and the analysis of their motives to visit the Saint Petersburg Botanic Garden in particular. It also shows the growth of interest in the open ground collections

Exact Solution of an Octagonal Random Tiling Model

We consider the two-dimensional random tiling model introduced by Cockayne, i.e. the ensemble of all possible coverings of the plane without gaps or overlaps with squares and various hexagons. At the appropriate relative densities the correlations have eight-fold rotational symmetry. We reformulate the model in terms of a random tiling ensemble with identical rectangles and isosceles triangles. The partition function of this model can be calculated by diagonalizing a transfer matrix using the Bethe Ansatz (BA). The BA equations can be solved providing {\em exact} values of the entropy and elastic constants.Comment: 4 pages,3 Postscript figures, uses revte

Texture and shape of two-dimensional domains of nematic liquid crystal

We present a generalized approach to compute the shape and internal structure of two-dimensional nematic domains. By using conformal mappings, we are able to compute the director field for a given domain shape that we choose from a rich class, which includes drops with large and small aspect ratios, and sharp domain tips as well as smooth ones. Results are assembled in a phase diagram that for given domain size, surface tension, anchoring strength, and elastic constant shows the transitions from a homogeneous to a bipolar director field, from circular to elongated droplets, and from sharp to smooth domain tips. We find a previously unaccounted regime, where the drop is nearly circular, the director field bipolar and the tip rounded. We also find that bicircular director fields, with foci that lie outside the domain, provide a remarkably accurate description of the optimal director field for a large range of values of the various shape parameters.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure

Structure factors of harmonic and anharmonic Fibonacci chains by molecular dynamics simulations

The dynamics of quasicrystals is characterized by the existence of phason excitations in addition to the usual phonon modes. In order to investigate their interplay on an elementary level we resort to various one-dimensional model systems. The main observables are the static, the incoherent, and the coherent structure factor, which are extracted from molecular dynamics simulations. For the validation of the algorithms, results for the harmonic periodic chain are presented. We then study the Fibonacci chain with harmonic and anharmonic interaction potentials. In the dynamic Fibonacci chain neighboring atoms interact by double-well potentials allowing for phason flips. The difference between the structure factors of the dynamic and the harmonic Fibonacci chain lies in the temperature dependence of the phonon line width. If a bias is introduced in the well depth, dispersionless optic phonon bands split off.Comment: 12 pages, 15 figure

Generalized quasiperiodic Rauzy tilings

We present a geometrical description of new canonical $d$-dimensional codimension one quasiperiodic tilings based on generalized Fibonacci sequences. These tilings are made up of rhombi in 2d and rhombohedra in 3d as the usual Penrose and icosahedral tilings. Thanks to a natural indexing of the sites according to their local environment, we easily write down, for any approximant, the sites coordinates, the connectivity matrix and we compute the structure factor.Comment: 11 pages, 3 EPS figures, final version with minor change