Upper bound on the window of density occupied by microemulsion phases in two-dimensional electron systems
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2023
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| _version_ | 1866913228375719936 |
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| author | Joy, Sandeep Skinner, Brian |
| author_facet | Joy, Sandeep Skinner, Brian |
| contents | In two-dimensional electronic systems, direct first-order phase transitions are prohibited as a consequence of the long-range Coulomb interaction, which implies a stiff energetic penalty for macroscopic phase separation. A prominent proposal is that any direct first-order transition is instead replaced by a sequence of ``microemulsion" phases, in which the two phases are mixed in patterns of mesoscopic domains. In this note, we comment on the range $Δn$ of average electron density that such microemulsion phases may occupy. We point out that, even without knowing the value of a phenomenological parameter associated with surface tension between the two phases, one can place a fairly strong upper bound on the value of $Δn$. We make numerical estimates for $Δn$ in the case of the Fermi liquid to Wigner crystal transition and find $Δn$ to be on the order of $10^7$\,cm$^{-2}$. This value is much smaller than the width of the phase transition observed in experiments, suggesting that disorder is a more likely explanation for the apparent broadening of the transition. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2309_03961 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Upper bound on the window of density occupied by microemulsion phases in two-dimensional electron systems Joy, Sandeep Skinner, Brian Strongly Correlated Electrons Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics In two-dimensional electronic systems, direct first-order phase transitions are prohibited as a consequence of the long-range Coulomb interaction, which implies a stiff energetic penalty for macroscopic phase separation. A prominent proposal is that any direct first-order transition is instead replaced by a sequence of ``microemulsion" phases, in which the two phases are mixed in patterns of mesoscopic domains. In this note, we comment on the range $Δn$ of average electron density that such microemulsion phases may occupy. We point out that, even without knowing the value of a phenomenological parameter associated with surface tension between the two phases, one can place a fairly strong upper bound on the value of $Δn$. We make numerical estimates for $Δn$ in the case of the Fermi liquid to Wigner crystal transition and find $Δn$ to be on the order of $10^7$\,cm$^{-2}$. This value is much smaller than the width of the phase transition observed in experiments, suggesting that disorder is a more likely explanation for the apparent broadening of the transition. |
| title | Upper bound on the window of density occupied by microemulsion phases in two-dimensional electron systems |
| topic | Strongly Correlated Electrons Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.03961 |