Re-entrant phase transitions induced by localization of zero-modes

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Morone, Flaviano, Sels, Dries
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Morone, Flaviano
Sels, Dries
author_facet Morone, Flaviano
Sels, Dries
contents Common wisdom dictates that physical systems become less ordered when heated to higher temperature. However, several systems display the opposite phenomenon and move to a more ordered state upon heating, e.g. at low temperature piezoelectric quartz is paraelectric and it only becomes piezoelectric when heated to sufficiently high temperature. The presence, or better, the re-entrance of unordered phases at low temperature is more prevalent than one might think. Although specific models have been developed to understand the phenomenon in specific systems, a universal explanation is lacking. Here we propose a universal simple microscopic theory which predicts the existence of two critical temperatures in inhomogeneous systems, where the lower one marks the re-entrance into the less ordered phase. We show that the re-entrant phase transition is caused by disorder-induced spatial localization of the zero-mode on a finite, i.e. sub-extensive, region of the system. Specifically, this trapping of the zero-mode disconnects the fluctuations of the order parameter in distant regions of the system, thus triggering the loss of long-range order and the re-entrance into the disordered phase. This makes the phenomenon quite universal and robust to the underlying details of the model, and explains its ubiquitous observation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_05339
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Re-entrant phase transitions induced by localization of zero-modes
Morone, Flaviano
Sels, Dries
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Statistical Mechanics
Common wisdom dictates that physical systems become less ordered when heated to higher temperature. However, several systems display the opposite phenomenon and move to a more ordered state upon heating, e.g. at low temperature piezoelectric quartz is paraelectric and it only becomes piezoelectric when heated to sufficiently high temperature. The presence, or better, the re-entrance of unordered phases at low temperature is more prevalent than one might think. Although specific models have been developed to understand the phenomenon in specific systems, a universal explanation is lacking. Here we propose a universal simple microscopic theory which predicts the existence of two critical temperatures in inhomogeneous systems, where the lower one marks the re-entrance into the less ordered phase. We show that the re-entrant phase transition is caused by disorder-induced spatial localization of the zero-mode on a finite, i.e. sub-extensive, region of the system. Specifically, this trapping of the zero-mode disconnects the fluctuations of the order parameter in distant regions of the system, thus triggering the loss of long-range order and the re-entrance into the disordered phase. This makes the phenomenon quite universal and robust to the underlying details of the model, and explains its ubiquitous observation.
title Re-entrant phase transitions induced by localization of zero-modes
topic Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Statistical Mechanics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.05339