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Smectic-A to -C phase transition in isotropic disordered environments

Leiming Chen (陈雷鸣)

John Toner

  • College of Science, The China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou Jiangsu, 221116, People's Republic of China

  • Department of Physics and Institute of Theoretical Science, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403, USA

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Phys. Rev. E 87, 042501 – Published 2 April, 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.87.042501

Abstract

We study theoretically the smectic-A to -C phase transition in isotropic disordered environments. Surprisingly, we find that, as in the clean smectic-A to -C phase transition, smectic layer fluctuations do not affect the nature of the transition, in spite of the fact that they are much stronger in the presence of the disorder. As a result, we find that the universality class of the transition is that of the “random field XY model” (RFXY).

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Phys. Rev. E 87, 042501– Published 2 April, 2013
  • Received 12 June 2012
Article part of CHORUS

©2013 American Physical Society

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