Fluctuation-driven 1st-order isotropic-to-tetrahedratic phase transition

被引：47

作者：

Radzihovsky, L ^{[1
]}

Lubensky, TC

机构：

[1] Univ Colorado, Dept Phys, Boulder, CO 80309 USA

[2] Univ Penn, Dept Phys, Philadelphia, PA 19174 USA

来源：

EUROPHYSICS LETTERS | 2001年 / 54卷 / 02期

关键词：

D O I：

10.1209/epl/i2001-00296-0

中图分类号：

O4 [物理学];

学科分类号：

0702 ;

摘要：

Motivated in part by recent experiments on liquid crystals with bent-core molecules, which are observed to display spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking, we introduce field theory of 3rd-rank tensor order parameter T-ijk to describe the isotropic-to-tetrahedratic phase transition that we predict to take place in these materials. We study the critical properties of the corresponding phase transition and find that this transition, continuous at the mean-field level, is generically driven 1st-order by thermal fluctuations.

引用

页码：206 / 212

页数：7

共 17 条

[1]

Brand HR, 1998, EUR PHYS J B, V6, P347, DOI 10.1007/s100510050560

[2] DISCUSSION OF CRITICAL PHENOMENA FOR GENERAL NORMAL-VECTOR MODELS [J].