Critical behavior of disordered systems with a free surface

The behavior of homogeneous and disordered systems with a free boundary is described on the basis of group theory in the two-loop approximation directly in three-dimensional space. The effect of the free boundary on the regime of the bulk critical behavior is revealed. It is shown that the boundedness of the system slightly affects the regime of the bulk critical behavior in the case of the ordinary transition, whereas this effect is more noticeable in the case of the special transition. Surface critical phenomena are described for homogeneous and disordered systems, and the critical exponents are calculated in the two-loop approximation. It is shown that the effect of impurities is insignificant in the special phase transition, whereas it is more noticeable in the ordinary phase transition. The derived critical exponents are compared with the computer-simulation results.     

A mean spherical model with coulomb interactions. II. Correlations at a free surface

Studies of the mean spherical model with Coulomb interactions are continued, by considering a system on ad-dimensional lattice which is periodic ind–1 dimensions and has a free surface in the remaining dimension. It is shown explicitly that correlations along the free surface decay asy ^–d ind dimensions and show that the surface properties of this model are those expected for a charged system in its plasma phase.     

Multicritical behavior of systems with a free surface

The effect of a plane free surface on the multicritical behavior of Ising-like systems with two coupled fluctuating order parameters is analyzed. Homogeneous and weakly disordered systems are considered. The multicritical points at the junctions of bulk and surface phase transition lines are defined. The types of multicritical points that can exist in the phase diagrams of such systems are described.     

Vibration of a liquid with a free surface in a spinning spherical tank

The problem of forced fluid vibrations in a partially filled spinning spherical tank is solved numerically by using the finite element method. The governing equations include Coriolis acceleration and spatially homogeneous vorticity. An exponential instability is detected in the present simulation for fill ratios below 0·5 and centrifugal acceleration to thrust ratios less than 1·7. This fictitious instability appears in the model as a result of the homogeneous vortex assumption since the free slosh equations are neutrally stable in the Liapunov sense.     

Critical dynamics of the random spherical model

The spherical model with random infinite-range interactions which shows a spin-glass property is investigated rigorously by the kinetic model. The uniform magnetization as well as the order parameter shows a critical slowing down. The static nonlinear susceptibility is found to diverge at the freezing temperature.     

Critical behavior of a three-dimensional dimer model

The phase transition behavior of a dimer model on a three-dimensional lattice is studied. This model is of biological interest because of its relevance to the lipid bilayer main phase transition. The model has the same kind of inactive low-temperature behavior as the exactly solvable Kasteleyn dimer model on a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice. Because of low-temperature inactivity, determination of the lowest-lying excited states allows one to locate the critical temperature. In this paper the second-lowest-lying excited states are studied and exact asymptotic results are obtained in the limit of large lattices. These results together with a finite-size scaling ansatz suggest a logarithmic divergence of the specific heat aboveT _c for the three-dimensional model. Use of the same ansatz recovers the exact divergence (α=1/2) for the two-dimensional model.     

Critical behavior of a dynamical percolation model

The critical behavior of the dynamical percolation model,which realizes the molecular-aggregation conception and describes the crossover between the hadronic phase and the partonic phase,is studied in detail. The critical percolation distance for this model is obtained by using the probability P∞ of the appearance of an infinite cluster. Utilizing the finite-size scaling method the critical exponents γ/ν and τ are extracted from the distribution of the average cluster size and cluster number density. The influences of two model related factors,i.e. the maximum bond number and the definition of the infinite cluster,on the critical behavior are found to be small.     

Critical behavior of a dynamical percolation model

The critical behavior of the dynamical percolation model, which realizes the molecular-aggregation conception and describes the crossover between the hadronic phase and the partonic phase, is studied in detail. The critical percolation distance for this model is obtained by using the probability P∞ of the appearance of an infinite cluster. Utilizing the finite-size scaling method the critical exponents γ/v and T are extracted from the distribution of the average cluster size and cluster number density. The influences of two model related factors, I.e. The maximum bond number and the definition of the infinite cluster, on the critical behavior are found to be small.     

Critical behavior in a model of correlated percolation

We study the critical behavior of certain two-parameter families of correlated percolation models related to the Ising model on the triangular and square lattices, respectively. These percolation models can be considered as interpolating between the percolation model given by the + and – clusters and the Fortuin-Kasteleyn correlated percolation model associated to the Ising model. We find numerically on both lattices a two-dimensional critical region in which the expected cluster size diverges, yet there is no percolation.     

Short-time behavior of the kinetic spherical model with long-ranged interactions

The kinetic spherical model with long-ranged interactions and an arbitrary initial order m₀ quenched from a very high temperature to T is solved. In the short-time regime, the bulk order increases with a power law in both the critical and phase-ordering dynamics. To the latter dynamics, a power law for the relative order is found in the intermediate time-regime. The short-time scaling relations of small m₀ are generalized to an arbitrary m₀ and all the time larger than . The characteristic functions for the scaling of m₀ and for are obtained. The crossover between scaling regimes is discussed in detail. Received 17 September 1999     

Phase structure of a spherical surface model on fixed connectivity meshes

An elastic surface model is investigated by using the canonical Monte Carlo simulation technique on triangulated spherical meshes. The model undergoes a first-order collapsing transition and a continuous surface fluctuation transition. The shape of surfaces is maintained by a one-dimensional bending energy, which is defined on the mesh, and no two-dimensional bending energy is included in the Hamiltonian.     

Critical behavior of a KAM surface: I. Empirical results

Kolmogorov-Arnol'd-Moser (KAM) surfaces are studied in the context of a perturbed two-dimensional twist map. In particular, we ask how a KAM surface can disappear as the perturbation parameter is increased. Following Greene, we use cycles to numerically construct the KAM curve and discover that at the critical coupling it shows structure at all length scales. Aspects of this structure are fitted by a scaling analysis; critical indices and scaling functions are determined numerically. Some evidence is presented which suggests that the results are universal.Supported in part by the Materials Research Laboratory Program of the National Science Foundation at the University of Chicago under grant No. NSF-MRL 7924007.Robert R. McCormick and National Science Foundation Fellow     

Critical behavior of a three-state Potts model on a Voronoi lattice

We use the single-histogram technique to study the critical behavior of the three-state Potts model on a (random) Voronoi-Delaunay lattice with size ranging from 250 to 8 000 sites. We consider the effect of an exponential decay of the interactions with the distance, , with a>0, and observe that this system seems to have critical exponents and which are different from the respective exponents of the three-state Potts model on a regular square lattice. However, the ratio remains essentially the same. We find numerical evidences (although not conclusive, due to the small range of system size) that the specific heat on this random system behaves as a power-law for a=0 and as a logarithmic divergence for a=0.5 and a=1.0 Received 5 April 2000