Smectic-Ato -Cphase transition in isotropic disordered environments

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).