Group-theoretical method for physical property tensors of quasicrystals

In addition to the phonon variable there is the phason variable in hydrodynamics for quasicrystals. These two kinds of hydrodynamic variables have different transformation properties. The phonon variable transforms under the vector representation, whereas the phason variable transforms under another related representation. Thus, a basis (or a set of basis functions) in the representation space should include such two kinds of variables. This makes it more difficult to determine the physical property tensors of quasicrystals. In this paper the group-theoretical method is given to determine the physical property tensors of quasicrystals. As an illustration of this method we calculate the third-order elasticity tensors of quasicrystals with five-fold symmetry by means of basis functions. It follows that the linear phonon elasticity is isotropic, but the nonlinear phonon elasticity is anisotropic for pentagonal quasicrystals. Meanwhile, the basis functions are constructed for all noncrystallographic point groups of quasicrystals.