Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking Phase Transition Research Articles

Creation of topological charges by the spontaneous symmetry breaking phase transition in azo dye-doped nematic liquid crystals

Liquid crystals are anisotropic fluids with long-range directional order. They can be easily used to create topological defects, but creating a controlled topological defect is difficult and involves many tasks and complex processes. However, in our study, we were able to easily generate disclinations in the symmetry-breaking boundaries of an azo dye-doped nematic liquid crystal cell owing to photoisomerization and symmetry-breaking isotropic-nematic phase transition. The method proposed here marks the starting point for the easier control of topological defects in liquid crystals.

Amplitude Mode in Quantum Magnets via Dimensional Crossover.

We investigate the amplitude (Higgs) mode associated with longitudinal fluctuations of the order parameter at the continuous spontaneous symmetry breaking phase transition. In quantum magnets, due to the fast decay of the amplitude mode into low-energy Goldstone excitations, direct observation of this mode represents a challenging task. By focusing on a quasi-one-dimensional geometry, we circumvent the difficulty and investigate the amplitude mode in a system of weakly coupled spin chains with the help of quantum MonteCarlo simulations, stochastic analytic continuation, and a chain-mean field approach combined with a mapping to the field-theoretic sine-Gordon model. The amplitude mode is observed to emerge in the longitudinal spin susceptibility in the presence of a weak symmetry-breaking staggered field. A conventional measure of the amplitude mode in higher dimensions, the singlet bond mode, is found to appear at a lower than the amplitude mode frequency. We identify these two excitations with the second (first) breather of the sine-Gordon theory, correspondingly. In contrast to higher-dimensional systems, the amplitude and bond order fluctuations are found to carry significant spectral weight in the quasi-1D limit.

Chaos propeties of the time-dependent driven Dicke model

Now, many different approaches have been presented to study the different semi-classical models derived from the Dicke Hamiltonian, which reflect a fact that the quantum-mechanical spin possesses no direct classical analog. The Hartree-Fock-type approximation is one of the widely used approaches, with which we derive the Heisenberg equations of motion for the system and replace the operators in these equations with the corresponding expectation values. In the present paper, we investigate the role of quantum phase transition in determining the chaotic property of the time-dependent driven Dicke model. The semi-classical Hamiltonian is derived by evaluating the expectation value of the Dicke Hamiltonian in a state, which is a product state of photonic and atomic coherent states. Based on the inverse of the relations between the position-momentum representation and the Bosonic creation-annihilation operators, the Hamiltonian is rewritten in the position-momentum representation and it undergoes a spontaneous symmetry-breaking phase transition, which is directly analogous to the quantum phase transition of the quantum system. In order to depict the Poincaré sections, which are used to analyze the trajectories through the four-dimensional phase space, we give the equations of motion of system from the derivatives of the semi-classical Hamiltonian for a variety of different parameters and initial conditions. According to the Dicke quantum phase transition observed from the experimental setup , we study the effect of a monochromatic non-adiabatic modulation of the atom-field coupling in Dicke model (i.e., the driven Dicke model) on the system chaos by adjusting the pump laser intensity. The change from periodic track to chaotic figure reflects the quantum properties of the system, especially the quantum phase transition point, which is a key position for people to analyse the shift from periodic orbit to chaos. In an undriven case, the system reduces to the standard Dicke model. We discover from the Poincaré sections that the system undergoes a change from the classical periodic orbit to a number of chaotic trajectories and in the superradiant phase area, the whole phase space is completely chaotic. When the static and driving coupling both exist, the system shows rich chaotic motion. The ground state properties are mainly determined by the static coupling, while the orbit of the system is adjusted by the driving coupling. If the static coupling is greater than the critical coupling, the system displays completely chaotic images in the Poincaré sections, and the periodic orbits in the chaos can also be adjusted by the strong driving coupling. While the static coupling is less than the critical coupling, the system can also show the chaotic images by adjusting the driving coupling strength and oscillation frequency. Moreover, by tuning the oscillation frequency, the Poincaré sections may change from the classical orbits to the chaos, and back to the classical orbits in the normal phase of the system.

Molecular crystal global phase diagrams. I. Method of construction

A method is described to produce global phase diagrams for single-component molecular crystals with separable internal and external modes. The phase diagrams present the equilibrium crystalline phase as a function of the coefficients of a general intermolecular potential based on rotational symmetry-adapted basis functions. It is assumed that phase transitions are driven by orientational ordering of molecules with a fixed time-averaged shape. The mean-field approximation is utilized and the process begins in a high-temperature disordered reference state, then spontaneous symmetry-breaking phase transitions and phase structure information at lower temperature are sought. The information is mapped onto phase diagrams using the intermolecular expansion coefficients as independent variables. This is illustrated by global phase diagrams for molecules having tetrahedral symmetry (e.g. carbon tetrachloride, adamantane and white phosphorus). Uses of global phase diagrams include crystal structure data mining, guidance for crystal design and enumeration of likely or missing polymorphic structures.

Inflationary perturbations from a potential with a step

We use a numerical code to compute the density perturbations generated during an inflationary epoch which includes a spontaneous symmetry breaking phase transition. A sharp step in the inflaton potential generates k dependent oscillations in the spectrum of primordial density perturbations. The amplitude and extent in wave number of these oscillations depends on both the magnitude and gradient of the step in the inflaton potential. We show that observations of the cosmic microwave background anisotropy place strong constraints on the step parameters.

Evidence for an inflationary phase transition from the LSS and CMB anisotropy data

In the light of the recent Boomerang and Maxima observations of the CMB which show an anomalously low second acoustic peak, we reexamine the prediction by Adams et al (1997) that this would be the consequence of a ‘step’ in the primordial spectrum induced by a spontaneous symmetry breaking phase transition during primordial inflation. We demonstrate that a deviation from scale-invariance around k ∼ 0.1 h Mpc −1 can simultaneously explain both the feature identified earlier in the APM galaxy power spectrum as well the recent CMB anisotropy data, with a baryon density consistent with the BBN value. Such a break also allows a good fit to the data on cluster abundances even for a critical density matter-dominated universe with zero cosmological constant.

PROBING GAUGE STRING FORMATION IN A SUPERCONDUCTING PHASE TRANSITION

Superconductors are the only experimentally accessible systems with spontaneously broken gauge symmetries which support topologically nontrivial defects, namely string defects. We propose two experiments whose aim is the observation of the dense network of these strings thought to arise, via the Kibble mechanism, in the course of a spontaneous symmetry breaking phase transition. We suggest ways to estimate the order of magnitude of the density of flux tubes produced in the phase transition. This may provide an experimental check for the theories of the production of topological defects in a spontaneously broken gauge theory, such as those employed in the context of the early Universe.