Dirt Softens Soap: Anomalous Elasticity of Disordered Smectics

Leo Radzihovsky; John Toner

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.78.4414

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arXiv · cond-mat/9701008

Dirt Softens Soap: Anomalous Elasticity of Disordered Smectics

Leo Radzihovsky·John Toner

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Abstract

We show that a smectic in a disordered medium (e.g., aerogel) exhibits anomalous elasticity, with the compression modulus B(k) vanishing and the bend modulus K(k) diverging as k --> 0. In addition, the effective disorder develops long ranged correlations. These divergences are much stronger than those driven by thermal fluctuations in pure smectics, and are controlled by a zero temperature glassy fixed point, which we study in an $ε=5-d$ expansion. We discuss the experimental implications of these theoretical predictions.

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BibTeX RIS

Leo Radzihovsky, John Toner. 1997-08-01. Dirt Softens Soap: Anomalous Elasticity of Disordered Smectics. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.78.4414

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