Search results for "critical phenomena"
showing 10 items of 91 documents
23.1: Invited Paper: Models and Experiments of Mechanical Integrity for Flexible Displays
2008
Flexible displays present a challenging problem in terms of mechanical integrity, a result of the considerable hygro-thermo-mechanical contrast between the inorganic, brittle device layers and the compliant polymer substrates. This paper reviews the main approaches to study and identify the key factors, which control the mechanical stability of this class of displays. Focus is put on the analyses of residual stress and damage under tensile loading. Novel electro-mechanical methods are used for accurate insight into critical phenomena. An important result is that the thickness and stiffness of the substrate control the critical strain for failure of the device layers.
Fractal approach in petrology: combining ultra small angle, small angle and intermediate angle neutron scattering
2000
Ultra small angle neutron scattering (USANS) instruments have recently covered the gap between the size resolution available with conventional intermediate angle neutron scattering and small angle neutron scattering (SANS) instruments on one side and optical microscopy on the other side. New fields of investigations are now open and important areas of material science (ceramics, glass fibers, natural materials) and fundamental physics (phase transition, phase separation and critical phenomena) can be studied in bulk samples with an accuracy previously unobtainable owing to a combination of favourable features of the neutron-matter interaction: high penetrability of neutrons, even cold neutr…
Finite-size scaling and the crossover to mean-field critical behavior in the two-dimensional Ising model with medium-ranged interactions.
1993
Critical amplitudes in finite-size scaling relations show a singular dependence on the range of the interactions, R. The respective power laws are predicted from phenomenological crossover scaling considerations. These predictions are tested by Monte Carlo simulations for medium-ranged Ising square lattices. It is speculated that some deviations between the simulation results and corresponding predictions may be due to logarithmic corrections.
Monte Carlo tests of theoretical predictions for critical phenomena: still a problem?
2000
Two Monte Carlo studies of critical behavior in ferromagnetic Ising models are described: the first one deals with the crossover from the Ising class to the mean field class, when the interaction range increases. The second study deals with the finite size behavior at dimensionalities above the marginal dimension where Landau theory applies. The numerical results are compared to pertinent theoretical predictions, and unsolved problems are briefly described.
Role of dense matter in collective supernova neutrino transformations
2008
6 pages, 2 figures.-- PACS nrs.: 14.60.Pq; 97.60.Bw.-- ArXiv pre-print available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/0807.0659
Rate Equation Network for Baryon Production in High Energy Nuclear Collisions
2003
We develop and solve a network of rate equations for the production of baryons and anti-baryons in high energy nuclear collisions. We include all members of the baryon octet and decuplet and allow for transformations among them. This network is solved during a relativistic 2+1 hydrodynamical expansion of the of the hot matter created in the collision. As an application we compare to the number of protons, lambdas, negative cascades, and omega baryons measured at mid-rapidity in central collisions of gold nuclei at 65 GeV per nucleon at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).
On the Fractal Structure of Evolutionary Trees
2002
We analyse in terms of a fractal tree the time sequences of major evolutionary leaps at various scales: from the scale of the “global” tree of life (appearance of life to homeothermy), to the distinct scales of organization of clades, such as sauropod and theropod dinosaurs, North American equids, rodents, primates including hominids, and echinoderms. We also apply this type of model to the acceleration observed in the economic crisis/no-crisis pattern in Western and pre-Columbian civilizations. In each case we find that these data are consistent with a log-periodic law of acceleration or deceleration, to a high level of statistical significance. Such a law is characterized by a critical ep…
Computer simulations of critical phenomena and phase behaviour of fluids
2010
Computer simulation techniques such as Monte Carlo (MC) and Molecular Dynamics (MD) methods yield numerically exact information (apart from statistical errors) on model systems of classical statistical mechanics. However, a systematic limitation is the restriction to a finite (and often rather small) particle number N (or box linear dimension L, respectively). This limitation is particularly restrictive near critical points (due to the divergence of the correlation length of the order parameter) and for the study of phase equilibria (possibly involving interfaces, droplets, etc.). Starting out with simple lattice gas (Ising) models, finite size scaling analyses have been developed to overco…
Small angle neutron scattering studies of critical phenomena in a three-component microemulsion
2007
Critical density fluctuations of a ``water-in-oil`` microemulsion consisting of water, benzene, and BHDC (benzyldimethyl-n-hexadecyl ammonium chloride) were observed near the phase boundary by SANS. Observed profiles were well described by product of a form factor of spherical droplets and a structure factor, consisting of a term describing the inter-droplet correlations and also an Ornstein- Zernike component describing the droplet density fluctuations. Allowance was also made fro droplet polydispersity,though the width of the distribution turned out to be very small (1-2%). Observed temperature dependence of osmotic compressibility was fitted using the crossover function proposed by Belya…
Monte Carlo simulations of Ising models and polymer blends in double wedge geometry: Evidence for novel types of critical phenomena
2005
Abstract Two-phase coexistence in systems with free surfaces is enforced by boundary fields requiring the presence of an interface. Varying the temperature or the surface field, one can observe new types of phase transitions where the interface essentially disappears (it becomes bound to a wall or a wedge or a corner of the system). These transitions are simulated with Monte Carlo for Ising ferromagnets and polymer blends, applying finite size scaling analysis. Anisotropic critical fluctuations may occur, and in the limit where the system becomes macroscopically large in all three directions the order parameter vanishes discontinuously (either because its exponent β = 0 , or its critical am…