Two modern thermostatistical techniques are used to treat classical Landau-like theories. A Ginzburg-Landau model is simplified using Kadanoff blocks that fluctuate independently, and the Landau energy is lowered using a nanothermodynamic ensemble with no constraints. Advantages of these techniques include eliminating explicit surface terms between real-space blocks, and minimizing the free energy to give the true thermal equilibrium. The theory yields non-uniform clustering, non-exponential relaxation, and non-classical critical scaling, similar to behavior found near the liquid-glass and ferromagnetic transitions. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
