arXiv subjects

A. P. Vieira

Publications and source records attributed to A. P. Vieira.

17 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2022

Phase behavior of a lattice-gas model for biaxial nematics

We employ a lattice-gas extension of the Maier--Saupe model with discrete orientation states to study the phase behavior of a statistical model for biaxial nematogenic units in mean-field theory. The phase behavior of the system is investigated in terms of the strength of isotropic interaction between anisotropic objects, as well as the degree of biaxiality and the concentration of those units. We obtain phase diagrams with isotropic phases and stable biaxial and uniaxial nematic structures, various phase coexistences, many types of critical and multicritical behaviors, such as ordinary vapor-liquid critical points, critical end points and tricritical points, and distinct Landau-like multicritical points. Our results widen the possibilities of relating the phenomenological coefficients of the Landau--de Gennes expansion to microscopic parameters, allowing an improved interpretation of theoretical fittings to experimental data.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2020

Dynamics of extended Schelling models

We explore extensions of Schelling's model of social dynamics, in which two types of agents live on a checkerboard lattice and move in order to optimize their own satisfaction, which depends on how many agents among their neighbors are of their same type. For each number $n$ of same-type nearest neighbors we independently assign a binary satisfaction variable $s_{k}$ which is equal to one only if the agent is satisfied with that condition, and is equal to zero otherwise. This defines 32 different satisfaction rules, which we investigate in detail, focusing on pattern formation and measuring segregation with the help of an "energy" function which is related to the number of neighboring agents of different types and plays no role in the dynamics. We consider the checkerboard lattice to be fully occupied and the dynamics consists of switching the locations of randomly selected unsatisfied agents of opposite types. We show that, starting from a random distribution of agents, only a small number of rules lead to (nearly) fully segregated patterns in the long run, with many rules leading to chaotic steady-state behavior. Nevertheless, other interesting patterns may also be dynamically generated, such as "anti-segregate d" patterns as well as patterns resembling sponges.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2016

Crossover from one- to three-dimensional behavior in the S = 1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet Cu(N2H5)2(SO4)2

From experimental and theoretical analyses of magnetic and specific-heat properties, we present the complete magnetic phase diagram of the quasi-one-dimensional antiferromagnet Cu(N$_2$H$_5$)$_2$(SO$_4$)$_2$. On cooling and at zero magnetic field this compound enters a one-dimensional regime with short-range magnetic correlations, marked by a broad maximum in the specific heat and magnetic susceptibility at $T_\mathrm{max}\sim 2\,\mathrm{K}$, followed by an ordered antiferromagnetic phase below $T_\mathrm{N}\sim 1\,\mathrm{K}$ induced by small interchain couplings. The intermediate-temperate one-dimensional regime can be modeled using exact quantum-transfer-matrix calculations, which perfectly describe the nonmonotonic behavior of T_max as a function of the magnetic field, giving $J = 4.25\,\mathrm{K}$ for the intrachain exchange parameter. The analysis of magnetic specific-heat and susceptibility data at low temperature indicates that the interchain exchange couplings are an order of magnitude smaller than the coupling inside the chains.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2016

Lattice statistical models for the nematic transitions in liquid-crystalline systems

We investigate the connections between some simple Maier-Saupe lattice models, with a discrete choice of orientations of the microscopic directors, and a recent proposal of a two-tensor formalism to describe the phase diagrams of nematic liquid-crystalline systems. This two-tensor proposal is used to formulate the statistical problem in terms of fully-connected lattice Hamiltonians, with the local nematic directors restricted to the Cartesian axes. Depending on the choice of interaction parameters, we regain all of the main features of the original mean-field two-tensor calculations. With a standard choice of parameters, we obtain the well-known sequence of isotropic, uniaxial, and biaxial nematic structures, with a Landau multicritical point. With another suitably chosen set of parameters, we obtain two tricritical points, according to some recent predictions of the two-tensor calculations. The simple statistical lattice models are quite easy to work with, for all values of parameters, and the present calculations can be carried out beyond the mean-field level.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2015

Maier-Saupe model for a mixture of uniaxial and biaxial molecules

We introduce shape fluctuations in a liquid-crystalline system by considering an elementary Maier--Saupe lattice model for a mixture of uniaxial and biaxial molecules. Shape variables are treated in the annealed (thermalized) limit. We analyze the thermodynamic properties of this system in terms of temperature $T$, concentration $c$ of intrinsically biaxial molecules, and a parameter $Δ$ associated with the degree of biaxiality of the molecules. At the mean-field level, we use standard techniques of statistical mechanics to draw global phase diagrams, which are shown to display a rich structure, including uniaxial and biaxial nematic phases, a reentrant ordered region, and many distinct multicritical points. Also, we use the formalism to write an expansion of the free energy in order to make contact with the Landau--de Gennes theory of nematic phase transitions.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2014

Analytical and numerical studies of disordered spin-1 Heisenberg chains with aperiodic couplings

We investigate the low-temperature properties of the one-dimensional spin-1 Heisenberg model with geometric fluctuations induced by aperiodic but deterministic coupling distributions, involving two parameters. We focus on two aperiodic sequences, the Fibonacci sequence and the 6-3 sequence. Our goal is to understand how these geometric fluctuations modify the physics of the (gapped) Haldane phase, which corresponds to the ground state of the uniform spin-1 chain. We make use of different adaptations of the strong-disorder renormalization-group (SDRG) scheme of Ma, Dasgupta and Hu, widely employed in the study of random spin chains, supplemented by quantum Monte Carlo and density-matrix renormalization-group numerical calculations, to study the nature of the ground state as the coupling modulation is increased. We find no phase transition for the Fibonacci chain, while we show that the 6-3 chain exhibits a phase transition to a gapless, aperiodicity-dominated phase similar to the one found for the aperiodic spin-1/2 XXZ chain. Contrary to what is verified for random spin-1 chains, we show that different adaptations of the SDRG scheme may lead to different qualitative conclusions about the nature of the ground state in the presence of aperiodic coupling modulations.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2011

Protecting clean critical points by local disorder correlations

We show that a broad class of quantum critical points can be stable against locally correlated disorder even if they are unstable against uncorrelated disorder. Although this result seemingly contradicts the Harris criterion, it follows naturally from the absence of a random-mass term in the associated order-parameter field theory. We illustrate the general concept with explicit calculations for quantum spin-chain models. Instead of the infinite-randomness physics induced by uncorrelated disorder, we find that weak locally correlated disorder is irrelevant. For larger disorder, we find a line of critical points with unusual properties such as an increase of the entanglement entropy with the disorder strength. We also propose experimental realizations in the context of quantum magnetism and cold-atom physics.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2010

Phase diagram of a model for a binary mixture of nematic molecules on a Bethe lattice

We investigate the phase diagram of a discrete version of the Maier-Saupe model with the inclusion of additional degrees of freedom to mimic a distribution of rodlike and disklike molecules. Solutions of this problem on a Bethe lattice come from the analysis of the fixed points of a set of nonlinear recursion relations. Besides the fixed points associated with isotropic and uniaxial nematic structures, there is also a fixed point associated with a biaxial nematic structure. Due to the existence of large overlaps of the stability regions, we resorted to a scheme to calculate the free energy of these structures deep in the interior of a large Cayley tree. Both thermodynamic and dynamic-stability analyses rule out the presence of a biaxial phase, in qualitative agreement with previous mean-field results.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2006

Fractal analysis of weld defect patterns obtained by radiographic tests

This paper presents a fractal analysis of radiographic patterns obtained from specimens with three types of inserted welding defects: lack of fusion, lack of penetration, and porosity. The study focused on patterns of carbon steel beads from radiographs of the International Institute of Welding (IIW). The radiographs were scanned using a greyscale with 256 levels, and the fractal features of the surfaces constructed from the radiographic images were characterized by means of Hurst, detrended-fluctuation, and minimal-cover analyses. A Karhunen-Loeve transformation was then used to classify the curves obtained from the fractal analyses of the various images, and a study of the classification errors was performed. The obtained results indicate that fractal analyses can be an effective additional tool for pattern recognition of weld defects in radiographic tests.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2006

Characterization of welding defects by fractal analysis of ultrasonic signals

In this work we apply tools developed for the study of fractal properties of time series to the problem of classifying defects in welding joints probed by ultrasonic tecniques. We employ the fractal tools in a preprocessing step, producing curves with a considerably smaller number of points than in the original signals. These curves are then used in the classification step, which is realized by applying an extension of the Karhunen-Loeve linear transformation. We show that our approach leads to small error rates, comparable with those obtained by using more time-consuming methods based on non-linear classifiers.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2005

Phase diagrams of soluble multi-spin glass models

We include p-spin interactions in a spherical version of a soluble mean-field spin-glass model proposed by van Hemmen. Due to the simplicity of the solutions, which do not require the use of the replica trick, we are able to carry out a detailed investigation of a number of special situations. For p larger or equal to 3, there appear first-order transitions between the paramagnetic and the ordered phases. In the presence of additional ferromagnetic interactions, we show that there is no stable mixed phase, with both ferromagnetic and spin-glass properties.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2002

Phenomenological model for the remanent magnetization of dilute quasi-one-dimensional antiferromagnets

We present a phenomenological model for the remanent magnetization at low temperatures in the quasi-one-dimensional dilute antiferromagnets CH_{3}NH_{3}Mn_{1-x}Cd_{x} Cl_{3}\cdot 2H_{2}O and (CH_{3})_{2}NH_{2}Mn_{1-x}Cd_{x}Cl_{3}\cdot 2H_{2}O. The model assumes the existence of uncompensated magnetic moments induced in the odd-sized segments generated along the Mn(^{2+}) chains upon dilution. These moments are further assumed to correlate ferromagnetically after removal of a cooling field. Using a (mean-field) linear-chain approximation and reasonable set of model parameters, we are able to reproduce the approximate linear temperature dependence observed for the remanent magnetization in the real compounds.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2002

Correlated disordered interactions on Potts models

Using a weak-disorder scheme and real-space renormalization-group techniques, we obtain analytical results for the critical behavior of various q-state Potts models with correlated disordered exchange interactions along d1 of d spatial dimensions on hierarchical (Migdal-Kadanoff) lattices. Our results indicate qualitative differences between the cases d-d1=1 (for which we find nonphysical random fixed points, suggesting the existence of nonperturbative fixed distributions) and d-d1>1 (for which we do find acceptable perturbartive random fixed points), in agreement with previous numerical calculations by Andelman and Aharony. We also rederive a criterion for relevance of correlated disorder, which generalizes the usual Harris criterion.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2001

Phase diagram of a random-anisotropy mixed-spin Ising model

We investigate the phase diagram of a mixed spin-1/2--spin-1 Ising system in the presence of quenched disordered anisotropy. We carry out a mean-field and a standard self-consistent Bethe--Peierls calculation. Depending on the amount of disorder, there appear novel transition lines and multicritical points. Also, we report some connections with a percolation problem and an exact result in one dimension.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2000

The one-dimensional XXZ model with long-range interactions

The one-dimensional XXZ model (s=1/2, N sites) with uniform long-range interactions among the transverse components of the spins is considered. The Hamiltonian of the model is explicitly given by $H=J\sum_{j=1}^{N}(s_{j}^{x}s_{j+1}^{x}+s_{j}^{y}s_{j+1}^{y}) -(I/N)\sum_{j,k=1}^{N}s_{j}^{z}s_{k}^{z}-h\sum_{j=1}^{N}s_{j}^{z},$ where the $s^{x,y,z}$ are half the Pauli spin matrices. The model is exactly solved by applying the Jordan-Wigner fermionization, followed by a Gaussian transformation. In the absence of the long-range interactions (I=0), the model, which reduces to the isotropic XY model, is known to exhibit a second-order quantum phase transition driven by the field at zero temperature. It is shown that in the presence of the long-range interactions (I different from 0) the nature of the transition is strongly affected. For I>0, which favours the ordering of the transverse components of the spins, the transition is changed from second- to first-order, due to the competition between transverse and xy couplings. On the other hand, for I<0, which induces complete frustration of the spins, a second-order transition is still present, although the system is driven out of its usual universality class, and its critical exponents assume typical mean-field values.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv1998

Phase diagram of random lattice gases in the annealed limit

An analysis of the random lattice gas in the annealed limit is presented. The statistical mechanics of disordered lattice systems is briefly reviewed. For the case of the lattice gas with an arbitrary uniform interaction potential and random short-range interactions the annealed limit is discussed in detail. By identifying and extracting an entropy of mixing term, a correct physical expression for the pressure is explicitly given. As an application, the one-dimensional lattice gas with uniform long-range interactions and random short-range interactions satisfying a bimodal annealed probability distribution is discussed. The model is exactly solved and is shown to present interesting behavior in the presence of competition between interactions, such as the presence of three phase transitions at constant temperature and the occurrence of triple and quadruple points.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv1998

One-dimensional Ising model with long-range and random short-range interactions

The one-dimensional Ising model in an external magnetic field with uniform long-range interactions and random short-range interactions satisfying bimodal annealed distributions is studied. This generalizes the random model discussed by Paladin et al. (J. Phys. I France 4, 1994, p. 1597). Exact results are obtained for the thermodynamic functions at arbitrary temperatures, and special attention is given to the induced and spontaneous magnetization. At low temperatures the system can exist in a ``ferrimagnetic'' phase with magnetization 0<m<1, in addition to the usual paramagnetic, ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic phases. For a fixed distribution of the random variables the system presents up to three tricritical points for different intensities of the long-range interactions. Field-temperature diagrams can present up to four critical points.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗