Phase Matter

We learned in school that matter exists in three forms: solid, liquid and gas, as well as other more subtle things such as the fact that "evaporation produces cold. " The science of the states of matter was born in the 19th century. It has now grown enormously in two directions: 1) The transitions have multiplied: first between a solid and a solid, par­ ticularly for metallurgists. Then for magnetism, illustrated in France by Louis Neel, and ferro electricity. In addition, the extraordinary phenomenon of su­ perconductivity in certain metals appeared at the beginning of the 20th cen­ tury. And other superfluids were recognized later: helium 4, helium 3, the matter constituting atomic nuclei and neutron stars . . . There is now a real zoology of transitions, but we know how to classify them based on Landau's superb idea. 2) Our profound view of the mechanisms has evolved: in particular, the very universal properties of fluctuations near a critical point - described by Kadanoff's qualitative analysis and specified by an extraordinary theoretical tool: the renormalization group. Without exaggerating, we can say that our view of condensed matter has undergone two revolutions in the 20th century: first, the introduction of quantum physics in 1930, then the recognition of "self-similar" structures and the resulting scaling laws around 1970. .

This book describes two main classes of non-equilibrium phase-transitions: (a) static and dynamics of transitions into an absorbing state, and (b) dynamical scaling in far-from-equilibrium relaxation behaviour and ageing.

This book presents an in-depth discussion on PCMs, the current state of PCM technology, and a detailed description of their prospective applications.

This book provides a comprehensive yet concise knowledge and understanding in the field of Two-phase separation in the T-Junction. and this book can not only contribute to the academics, but it can also provide valuable insight for the industrial use of the T-junction.

Nuclei in their ground states behave as quantum fluids, Fermi liquids. When the density, or the temperature of that fluid increases, various phase transitions may occur. Thus, for moderate excitation energies, of the order of a few MeV per nucleon, nuclear matter behaves as an ordinary fluid with gaseous and liquid phases, and a coexistence region below a critical temperature. For higher excitation energies, of the order of a few Ge V per nucleon, the composition of nuclear matter changes, nucleons being gradually turned into baryonic resonances of various kinds. Finally, when 3 the energy density exceeds some few GeV /fm , nuclear matter turns into a gas of weakly interacting quarks and gluons. This new phase of matter has been called the quark-gluon plasma, and its existence is a prediction of Quantum Chromodynamics. Collisions of heavy ions produce nuclear matter with various degrees of excitation. In fact, by selecting the impact parameter and the bombarding energy, one can produce nuclear matter with specified baryonic density and excitation energy. Several major experimental programs are under way (for instance at GANIL, with the detector INDRA, at GSI with the detector ALADIN, at the CERN-SPS, at the AGS of Brookhaven, etc. ), or are in preparation (RRIC, LHC, etc. ). The goal of these experiments is to get evidence for the different phases of nuclear matter predicted by the theory, and to study their properties.

In this thesis Johanna Bruckner reports the discovery of the lyotropic counterpart of the thermotropic SmC* phase, which has become famous as the only spontaneously polarized, ferroelectric fluid in nature. By means of polarizing optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction and electro-optic experiments she firmly establishes aspects of the structure of the novel lyotropic liquid crystalline phase and elucidates its fascinating properties, among them a pronounced polar electro-optic effect, analogous to the ferroelectric switching of its thermotropic counterpart. The helical ground state of the mesophase raises the fundamental question of how chiral interactions are "communicated" across layers of more or less disordered and achiral solvent molecules which are located between adjacent bi-layers of the chiral amphiphile molecules. This thesis bridges an important gap between thermotropic and lyotropic liquid crystals and pioneers a new field of liquid crystal research.

During a century, from the Van der Waals mean field description (1874) of gases to the introduction of renormalization group (RG techniques 1970), thermodynamics and statistical physics were just unable to account for the incredible universality which was observed in numerous critical phenomena. The great success of RG techniques is not only to solve perfectly this challenge of critical behaviour in thermal transitions but to introduce extremely useful tools in a wide field of daily situations where a system exhibits scale invariance. The introduction of scaling, scale invariance and universality concepts has been a significant turn in modern physics and more generally in natural sciences. Since then, a new "physics of scaling laws and critical exponents", rooted in scaling approaches, allows quantitative descriptions of numerous phenomena, ranging from phase transitions to earthquakes, polymer conformations, heartbeat rhythm, diffusion, interface growth and roughening, DNA sequence, dynamical systems, chaos and turbulence.

With its many beautiful colour pictures, this book gives fascinating insights into the unusual forms and behaviour of matter under extremely high pressures and temperatures. These extreme states are generated, among other things, by strong shock, detonation and electric explosion waves, dense laser beams, electron and ion beams, hypersonic entry of spacecraft into dense atmospheres of planets, and in many other situations characterized by extremely high pressures and temperatures.