Classical φ6-field theory in (1+1) dimensions. A model for structural phase transitions

The classical φ⁶-field theory in (1+1) dimensions, is considered as a model for the first order structural phase transitions. The equation of motion is solved exactly; and the presence of domain wall (kink) solutions at and below the transition point, in addition to the usual phonon-like oscillatory solutions, is demonstrated. The domain wall solutions are shown to be stable, and their mass and energies are calculated. Above the transition point there exists exotic unstable kink-like solutions which takes the particle from one hill top to the other of the potential. The partition function of the system is calculated exactly using the functional integral method together with the transfer matrix techniques which necessitates the determination of the eigenvalues of a Schrödinger-like equation. Thus the exact free energy is evaluated which in the low temperature limit has a phonon part and a contribution coming from the domain wall excitations. It was shown that this domain wall free energy differs from that calculated by the use of the domain wall phenomenology proposed by Krumhansl and Schrieffer. The exact solutions of the Schrödinger-like equation are also used to evaluate the displacement-displacement, intensity-intensity correlation functions and the probability distribution function. These results are compared with those obtained from the phenomenology as well as the φ⁴-field theory. A qualitative picture of the central peak observed in structural phase transitions is proposed.     

A perturbation approach to the density functional theory of adsorption

A modified treatment of an exact density functional theory for non-uniform fluids due to Saam and Ebner is presented and a perturbation method of solution is proposed which avoids the need for a local density approximation. For hard-core fluids near a hard wall the equation for the equilibrium density reduces tothe wall-particle version of the RHNC approximation.     

Electron transport near the Mott transition in n-GaAs and n-GaN

In this paper, we study the temperature dependence of the conductivity and the Hall coefficient near the metal–insulator phase transition. A theoretical investigation is performed within the effective mass approximation. The variational method is used to calculate the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the impurity states. Unlike previous studies, we have included nonlinear corrections to the screened impurity potential, because the Thomas–Fermi approximation is incorrect for the insulator phase. It is also shown that near the phase transition the exchange interaction is essential. The obtained temperature dependencies explain several experimental measurements in gallium arsenide (GaAs) and gallium nitride (GaN).     

Born effective charge reversal and metallic threshold state at a band insulator-Mott insulator transition

We study the quantum phase transition between a band (“ionic”) insulator and a Mott-Hubbard insulator, realized at a critical value in a bipartite Hubbard model with two inequivalent sites, whose on-site energies differ by an offset . The study is carried out both in D=1 and D=2 (square and honeycomb lattices), using exact Lanczos diagonalization, finite-size scaling, and Berry's phase calculations of the polarization. The Born effective charge jump from positive infinity to negative infinity previously discovered in D=1 by Resta and Sorella is confirmed to be directly connected with the transition from the band insulator to the Mott insulating state, in agreement with recent work of Ortiz et al. In addition, symmetry is analysed, and the transition is found to be associated with a reversal of inversion symmetry in the ground state, of magnetic origin. We also study the D=1 excitation spectrum by Lanczos diagonalization and finite-size scaling. Not only the spin gap closes at the transition, consistent with the magnetic nature of the Mott state, but also the charge gap closes, so that the intermediate state between the two insulators appears to be metallic. This finding, rationalized within Hartree-Fock as due to a sign change of the effective on-site energy offset for the minority spin electrons, underlines the profound difference between the two insulators. The band-to-Mott insulator transition is also studied and found in the same model in D=2. There too we find an associated, although weaker, polarization anomaly, with some differences between square and honeycomb lattices. The honeycomb lattice, which does not possess an inversion symmetry, is used to demonstrate the possibility of an inverted piezoelectric effect in this kind of ionic Mott insulator. Received 21 May 1999     

Conductivity of the Two-Dimensional Rayleigh Model Near the Percolation Threshold: A Subthreshold Region of Concentrations

The conductivity of the two-dimensional Rayleigh model near a critical point, the percolation threshold, is investigated. The effective conductivity of the model with a metal–prefect conductor phase transition is calculated in the binary (pair) approximation. For the alternative model with a metal–insulator phase transition the corresponding effective conductivity is determined from the Keller–Dykhne reciprocity relation.     

Surface charge carrier motion on insulating surfaces: One dimensional motion

We consider a model for the motion of charge carriers on the surface of an insulator. The insulator surface is either infinite, semi–infinite against a conducting half space or a strip between two conducting half spaces. The charge flux on the surface is assumed equal to the charge density times the electric field component in the surface, with time a constant. When the charge carrier motion in the plane is assumed constant in one direction, we can write the problem as an inviscid Burgers equation for a complex function. The imaginary part of this function is minus the carrier density while the real part, the Hilbert transform of the carrier density, is minus the electric field on the surface. Using the method of characteristics, we find an exact implicit solution for the problem and illustrate it with several examples. One set of examples, on the real line, or half of it, show how charge moves and how the surface may discharge into a conducting wall. They also show that the system can sustain shock wave solutions which are different from those in a real Burgers equation and other singular behaviour. Exact solutions on a finite strip between two conducting walls also show how that system can discharge completely, and also demonstrate shock waves. These systems are of particular interest because they are experimentally accessible.     

Holographic insulator/superconductor phase transitions with excited states

We construct a family of solutions of the holographic insulator/superconductor phase transitions with the excited states in the AdS soliton background by using both the numerical and analytical methods. The interesting point is that the improved SturmLiouville method can not only analytically investigate the properties of the phase transition with the excited states, but also the distributions of the condensed fields in the vicinity of the critical point. We observe that, regardless of the type of the holographic model, the excited state has a higher critical chemical potential than the corresponding ground state, and the difference of the dimensionless critical chemical potential between the consecutive states is around 2.4, which is different from the finding of the metal/superconductor phase transition in the Ad S black hole background. Furthermore, near the critical point, we find that the phase transition of the systems is of the second order and a linear relationship exists between the charge density and chemical potential for all the excited states in both s-wave and p-wave insulator/superconductor models.     

On the maximal noise for stochastic and QCD travelling waves

Using the relation of a set of nonlinear Langevin equations to reaction–diffusion processes, we note the existence of a maximal strength of the noise for the stochastic travelling wave solutions of these equations. Its determination is obtained using the field-theoretical analysis of branching-annihilation random walks near the directed percolation transition. We study its consequence for the stochastic Fisher–Kolmogorov–Petrovsky–Piscounov equation. For the related Langevin equation modeling the quantum chromodynamic nonlinear evolution of gluon density with rapidity, the physical maximal-noise limit may appear before the directed percolation transition, due to a shift in the travelling-wave speed. In this regime, an exact solution is known from a coalescence process. Universality and other open problems and applications are discussed in the outlook.     

Exact diagonalization study of 2D Hubbard model on honeycomb lattice: Semi-metal to insulator transition

Phase transition in a honeycomb lattice is studied by the means of the two-dimensional Hubbard model and the exact diagonalization dynamical mean field theory at zero temperature. At low energies, the dispersion relation is shown to be a linear function of the momentum. In the limit of weak interactions, the system is in the semi-metal phase. By increasing the on site interaction a semi-metal to insulator transition takes place in the paramagnetic phase. Calculation of double occupancy shows such a phase transition is of the second order. The respective phase transition point and critical on-site interaction are determined using renormalized Fermi velocity factor.     

Reflection and refraction of acoustic waves from the insulator-magnetoacoustic material interface

The reflection and refraction of longitudinal and transverse acoustic waves by the plane interface between an insulator and an easy-plane antiferromagnet undergoing a magnetic-field-induced orientational phase transition are analyzed. The angles of refraction, as well as all four coefficients of wave conversion, can be effectively controlled by varying the field. Conditions for the appearance of the critical angles of internal reflection and the effect of the magnetic field on these angles are considered. A glancing wave radiated into the material is shown to be a possibility near the phase transition.     

Superfluid-insulator transitions of the fermi gas with near-unitary interactions in a periodic potential

We consider spin-1/2 fermions of mass m with interactions near the unitary limit. In an applied periodic potential of amplitude V and period a_{L}, and with a density of an even integer number of fermions per unit cell, there is a second-order quantum phase transition between superfluid and insulating ground states at a critical V=V_{c}. We compute the universal ratio V_{c}ma_{L};{2}/variant Planck's over 2pi;{2} at N=infinity in a model with Sp(2N) spin symmetry. The insulator interpolates between a band insulator of fermions and a Mott insulator of fermion pairs. We discuss implications for recent experiments.     

Magnetic instability in strongly correlated superconductors

Recently, a new phenomenological Hamiltonian has been proposed to describe the superconducting cuprates. This so-called Gossamer Hamiltonian is an apt model for a superconductor with strong on-site Coulomb repulsion between the electrons. It is shown that at half-filling the Gossamer superconductor with strong repulsion is unstable toward an antiferromagnetic insulator. The superconducting state undergoes a quantum phase transition to an antiferromagnetic insulator as one increases the on-site Coulomb repulsion. Near the transition the Gossamer superconductor becomes spectroscopically indistinguishable from the insulator.     

Quantum Monte Carlo study of hard-core bosons in Creutz ladder with zero flux

The quantum phase of hard-core bosons in Creutz ladder with zero flux is studied.For a specific regime of the parameters(t_x=t_p,t_y0),the exact ground-state is found analytically,which is a dimerized insulator with one electron bound in each rung of the ladder.For the case t_x,t_y,t_p0,the system is exactly studied using quantum Monte Carlo(QMC)method without a sign problem.It is found that the system is a Mott insulator for small t_p and a quantum phase transition to a superfluid phase is driven by increasing t_p.The critical t~c _pis determined precisely by a scaling analysis.Since it is possible that the Creutz ladder is realized experimentally,the theoretical results are interesting to the cold-atom experiments.     

The density profile for the Klein-Kramers equation near an absorbing wall

We derive asymptotic series for the expansion coefficients of a function in terms of the Pagani functions, which occur in the boundary layer solutions of the Klein-Kramers equation. The results enable us to determine the density profile in the stationary solution of this equation near an absorbing wall from the numerically determined velocity distribution at the wall, with an accuracy of about 2%. We also obtain information about the analytic behavior of the density profile: this profile increases near the wall with the square root of the distance to the wall. Finally, the asymptotic analysis leads to an understanding of the slow convergence of variational approximations to the solution of the absorbing-wall problem and of the exponents that occur when one studies the variational approximations to various quantities of interest as functions of the number of terms in the variational ansatz. This is used to obtain a better variational estimate for the density at the wall.     

New Results for Directed Vesicles and Chains near an Attractive Wall

In this paper we present new exact results for single fully directed walks and fully directed vesicles near an attractive wall. This involves a novel method of solution for these types of problems. The major advantage of this method is that it, unlike many other single-walker methods, generalizes to an arbitrary number of walkers. The method of solution involves solving a set of partial difference equations with a Bethe Ansatz. The solution is expressed as a “constant-term” formula which evaluates to sums of products of binomial coefficients. The vesicle critical temperature is found at which a binding transition takes place, and the asymptotic forms of the associated partition functions are found to have three different entropic exponents depending on whether the temperature is above, below, or at its critical value. The expected number of monomers adsorbed onto the surface is found to become proportional to the vesicle length at temperatures below critical. Scaling functions near the critical point are determined.     

Test of scaling in two dimensions

The purpose of this paper is to report on the first comprehensive experimental test of the scaling hypothesis in two-dimensional physics. This hypothesis predicts that the equation of state near a phase transition of a system in thermodynamic equilibrium obeys a simple scaling law. Our experimental data, obtained on a truly two-dimensional magnetic system consisting of a subnanometer thick Fe films grown on top of a non-magnetic surface, explicitly display scaling. The experimental evidence suggests that this system is an almost perfect realization of a 2d Ising model.     

池沸腾中气泡生长过程的格子Boltzmann方法模拟

在通过引入精确差分方法的单组分多相格子Boltzmann模型的基础上耦合能量方程,并考虑流体与固壁间的相互作用力来调节气泡与固壁间的接触角,从而建立了一种新的描述气液相变的格子Boltzmann理论模型. 为验证该模型的正确性,利用其对工质为水的相变过程进行了模拟,发现模拟结果与实验值符合良好;进而利用其验证Laplace定律,发现计算所得的水的表面张力与实验值甚为符合. 为考察该模型处理复杂相变问题的能力,利用其对工质为水的池沸腾中的气泡生长过程进行模拟,发现气泡脱离直径与g^{-0 关键词： 格子Boltzmann方法 池沸腾 气泡生长过程 接触角}     

Theoretical and numerical calculation of the acoustic radiation force acting on a circular rigid cylinder near a flat wall in a standing wave excitation in an ideal fluid

The acoustic radiation force acting on a cylinder near a flat wall in a standing wave is calculated by analytical methods and numerical simulations. An exact theoretical solution is presented as well as an approximate solution. The approximate solution is in algebraic form and quite easy to compute. The numerical simulation is based on FVM (Finite Volume Method) on unstructured triangular meshes. The exact theoretical, approximate and numerical solutions are compared with each other and good agreements are obtained. Furthermore, the effects of the flat wall are investigated in detail by the three methods.     

First-order transition from a Kondo insulator to a ferromagnetic metal in single crystalline FeSi(1-x)Ge(x)

The phase diagram of FeSi(1-x)Ge(x), obtained from magnetic, thermal, and transport measurements on single crystals, shows a discontinuous transition from Kondo insulator to ferromagnetic metal with x at a critical concentration, x(c) approximately 0.25. The gap of the insulating phase strongly decreases with x. The specific heat gamma coefficient appears to track the density of states of a Kondo insulator. The phase diagram is consistent with an insulator-metal transition induced by a reduction of the hybridization with x in conjunction with disorder on the Si/Ge ligand site.