2008/12/31 by C. Kiefer, Claus Kiefer, Joao Marto +3
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Hamiltonian (control theory) #Harmonic oscillator #Kinetic energy #Kinetic term #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Quantum #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum dynamics #Quantum harmonic oscillator #Term (time) #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1002/andp.200910366
published as Annalen der Physik 18, 722-735 (2009) · 14 pages, 6 figures, conceptual clarifications added, final version
openalex publication_date 2009/09/04 · arxiv created 2009/10/16 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The present paper describes what happens at the surface of a crystal as its temperature steadily increases from zero Kelvin close to the bulk melting temperature. We treat thermal motion, such as the diffusion of individual adatoms establishing mass transport, the formation of adatom or vacancy gases coexisting with islands or steps of the condensed phase, surface phonons and the anharmonicity of the surface potential being markedly different from the one in bulk, as well as thermally induced reconstructions, surface roughening, and finally surface melting, which usually well precedes bulk melting. The paper intends to give an overview with references to the original and review literature.