No Arabic abstract
About a century ago, Born proposed a possible matter of state, ferroelectric fluid, might exist if the dipole moment is strong enough. The experimental realisation of such states needs magnifying molecular polar nature to macroscopic scales in liquids. Here, we report on the discovery of a novel chiral liquid matter state, dubbed chiral ferronematic, stabilized by the local ferroelectric ordering coupled to the chiral helicity. It carries the polar vector rotating helically, corresponding to a helieletric structure, analogous to the magnetic counterpart of helimagnet. The state can be retained down to room-temperature and demonstrates gigantic dielectric and nonlinear optical responses. The novel matter state opens a new chapter for exploring the material space of the diverse ferroelectric liquids.
We study classical two-dimensional frustrated Heisenberg models with generically incommensurate groundstates. A new theory for the spin-nematic order by disorder transition is developed based on the self-consistent determination of the effective exchange coupling bonds. In our approach, fluctuations of the constraint field imposing conservation of the local magnetic moment drive nematicity at low temperatures. The critical temperature is found to be highly sensitive to the peak helimagnetic wavevector, and vanishes continuously when approaching rotation symmetric Lifshitz points. Transitions between symmetry distinct nematic orders may occur by tuning the exchange parameters, leading to lines of bicritical points.
The two-body (pair) contribution to the entropy of two-dimensional Yukawa systems is calculated and analyzed. It is demonstrated that in the vicinity of the fluid-solid (freezing) phase transition the pair entropy exhibits an abrupt jump in a narrow temperature range and this can be used to identify the freezing point. Relations to the full excess entropy and some existing freezing indicators are briefly discussed.
Rough or textured hydrophobic surfaces are dubbed superhydrophobic due to their numerous desirable properties, such as water repellency and interfacial slip. Superhydrophobicity stems from an aversion for water to wet the surface texture, so that a water droplet in the superhydrophobic Cassie state, contacts only the tips of the rough hydrophobic surface. However, superhydrophobicity is remarkably fragile, and can break down due to the wetting of the surface texture to yield the Wenzel state under various conditions, such as elevated pressures or droplet impact. Moreover, due to large energetic barriers that impede the reverse (dewetting) transition, this breakdown in superhydrophobicity is widely believed to be irreversible. Using molecular simulations in conjunction with enhanced sampling techniques, here we show that on surfaces with nanoscale texture, water density fluctuations can lead to a reduction in the free energetic barriers to dewetting by circumventing the classical dewetting pathways. In particular, the fluctuation-mediated dewetting pathway involves a number of transitions between distinct dewetted morphologies, with each transition lowering the resistance to dewetting. Importantly, an understanding of the mechanistic pathways to dewetting and their dependence on pressure, allows us to augment the surface texture design, so that the barriers to dewetting are eliminated altogether and the Wenzel state becomes unstable at ambient conditions. Such robust surfaces, which defy classical expectations and can spontaneously recover their superhydrophobicity, could have widespread importance, from underwater operation to phase change heat transfer applications.
A vibrational model of heat transfer in simple liquids with soft pairwise interatomic interactions is discussed. A general expression is derived, which involves an averaging over the liquid collective mode excitation spectrum. The model is applied to quantify heat transfer in a dense Lennard-Jones liquid and a strongly coupled one-component plasma. Remarkable agreement with the available numerical results is documented. A similar picture does not apply to the momentum transfer and shear viscosity of liquids.
An hydrodynamic description of a one-dimensional flow of an ideal Fermi fluid is constructed from a semiclassical approximation. For an initially fully degenerate fluid, Euler and continuity hydrodynamic equations are dual to two uncoupled inviscid Burgers equations. Yet the price for the initial simplicity of the description is paid by the complexity of non-linear instabilities towards possible turbulent evolutions. Nevertheless, it is shown that linear long-wavelength density perturbations on a stationary flow are generically stable. Consequently, linear sound obeys a wave equation with analogy to gravity. The results have applications for ultra-cold atomic gases.