2011/10/18 by J. E. Galván-Moya, F. M. Peeters · 19 citations
Materials Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Chain (unit) #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Condensed matter physics #Critical point (mathematics) #Geometry #Lambda #Material Dynamics and Properties #Mathematical analysis #Mathematical physics #Mathematics #Order (exchange) #Phase transition #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Scaling #Spectroscopy and Quantum Chemical Studies #Thermodynamics #Transition point #Zigzag #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.84.134106
published in Physical Review B 84(13) (American Physical Society) · 12 pages, 11 figures
openalex publication_date 2011/10/18 · arxiv created 2012/07/18 · arxiv updated 2012/07/19 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present a mean-field description of the zigzag phase transition of a quasi-one-dimensional system of strongly interacting particles, with interaction potential r^\ensuremath-ne^\ensuremath-r/\ensuremathλ, that are confined by a power-law potential (y^\ensuremathα). The parameters of the resulting one-dimensional Ginzburg-Landau theory are determined analytically for different values of \ensuremathα and n. Close to the transition point for the zigzag phase transition, the scaling behavior of the order parameter is determined. For \ensuremathα=2, the zigzag transition from a single to a double chain is of second order, while for \ensuremathα>2, the one-chain configuration is always unstable and, for \ensuremathα<2, the one-chain ordered state becomes unstable at a certain critical density, resulting in jumps of single particles out of the chain.