Dislocations as linear topological defects

Abstract

Dislocations and dislocation plasticity are considered and compared with such dissimilar physical phenomena as superfluidity of liquid helium and type II superconductivity. These phenomena share the common property that the dislocations, as well as quantum vortices in superconductors and superfluid helium, are topological defects. They arise during a phase transformation which is accompanied by spontaneous symmetry breaking caused by Bose condensation of acoustic phonons. The general problems of the evolution of ensembles of linear topological defects and the character of the spatial structures formed by them are discussed.