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Multicritical Point
Multicritical points are special points in the parameter space of thermodynamic or other systems with a continuous phase transition. At least two thermodynamic or other parameters must be adjusted to reach a multicritical point. At a multicritical point the system belongs to a universality class different from the "normal" universality class. A more detailed definition requires concepts from the theory of critical phenomena, a branch of physics that reached a very satisfying state in the 1970s. Definition The union of all the points of the parameter space for which the system is critical is called a critical manifold. As an example consider a substance ferromagnetic below a transition temperature T_, and paramagnetic above T_c. The parameter space here is the temperature axis, and the critical manifold consists of the point T_c. Now add hydrostatic pressure P to the parameter space. Under hydrostatic pressure the substance normally still becomes ferromagnetic b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phase Transition
In chemistry, thermodynamics, and other related fields, a phase transition (or phase change) is the physical process of transition between one state of a medium and another. Commonly the term is used to refer to changes among the basic states of matter: solid, liquid, and gas, and in rare cases, plasma. A phase of a thermodynamic system and the states of matter have uniform physical properties. During a phase transition of a given medium, certain properties of the medium change as a result of the change of external conditions, such as temperature or pressure. This can be a discontinuous change; for example, a liquid may become gas upon heating to its boiling point, resulting in an abrupt change in volume. The identification of the external conditions at which a transformation occurs defines the phase transition point. Types of phase transition At the phase transition point for a substance, for instance the boiling point, the two phases involved - liquid and vapor, have identic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Universality Class
In statistical mechanics, a universality class is a collection of mathematical models which share a single scale invariant limit under the process of renormalization group flow. While the models within a class may differ dramatically at finite scales, their behavior will become increasingly similar as the limit scale is approached. In particular, asymptotic phenomena such as critical exponents will be the same for all models in the class. Some well-studied universality classes are the ones containing the Ising model or the percolation theory at their respective phase transition points; these are both families of classes, one for each lattice dimension. Typically, a family of universality classes will have a lower and upper critical dimension: below the lower critical dimension, the universality class becomes degenerate (this dimension is 2d for the Ising model, or for directed percolation, but 1d for undirected percolation), and above the upper critical dimension the critical e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Critical Phenomena
In physics, critical phenomena is the collective name associated with the physics of critical points. Most of them stem from the divergence of the correlation length, but also the dynamics slows down. Critical phenomena include scaling relations among different quantities, power-law divergences of some quantities (such as the magnetic susceptibility in the ferromagnetic phase transition) described by critical exponents, universality, fractal behaviour, and ergodicity breaking. Critical phenomena take place in second order phase transitions, although not exclusively. The critical behavior is usually different from the mean-field approximation which is valid away from the phase transition, since the latter neglects correlations, which become increasingly important as the system approaches the critical point where the correlation length diverges. Many properties of the critical behavior of a system can be derived in the framework of the renormalization group. In order to expl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which relates to the order of nature, or, in other words, to the regular succession of events." Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines, with its main goal being to understand how the universe behaves. "Physics is one of the most fundamental of the sciences. Scientists of all disciplines use the ideas of physics, including chemists who study the structure of molecules, paleontologists who try to reconstruct how dinosaurs walked, and climatologists who study how human activities affect the atmosphere and oceans. Physics is also the foundation of all engineering and technology. No engineer could design a flat-screen TV, an interplanetary spacecraft, or even a better mousetrap without first understanding the basic laws of physic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manifold
In mathematics, a manifold is a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space near each point. More precisely, an n-dimensional manifold, or ''n-manifold'' for short, is a topological space with the property that each point has a neighborhood that is homeomorphic to an open subset of n-dimensional Euclidean space. One-dimensional manifolds include lines and circles, but not lemniscates. Two-dimensional manifolds are also called surfaces. Examples include the plane, the sphere, and the torus, and also the Klein bottle and real projective plane. The concept of a manifold is central to many parts of geometry and modern mathematical physics because it allows complicated structures to be described in terms of well-understood topological properties of simpler spaces. Manifolds naturally arise as solution sets of systems of equations and as graphs of functions. The concept has applications in computer-graphics given the need to associate pictures with coordinates (e.g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ferromagnetic
Ferromagnetism is a property of certain materials (such as iron) which results in a large observed magnetic permeability, and in many cases a large magnetic coercivity allowing the material to form a permanent magnet. Ferromagnetic materials are the familiar metals noticeably attracted to a magnet, a consequence of their large magnetic permeability. Magnetic permeability describes the induced magnetization of a material due to the presence of an ''external'' magnetic field, and it is this temporarily induced magnetization inside a steel plate, for instance, which accounts for its attraction to the permanent magnet. Whether or not that steel plate acquires a permanent magnetization itself, depends not only on the strength of the applied field, but on the so-called coercivity of that material, which varies greatly among ferromagnetic materials. In physics, several different types of material magnetism are distinguished. Ferromagnetism (along with the similar effect ferrimagneti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tricritical Point
In condensed matter physics, dealing with the macroscopic physical properties of matter, a tricritical point is a point in the phase diagram of a system at which three-phase coexistence terminates. This definition is clearly parallel to the definition of an ordinary critical point as the point at which two-phase coexistence terminates. A point of three-phase coexistence is termed a triple point for a one-component system, since, from Gibbs' phase rule, this condition is only achieved for a single point in the phase diagram (''F'' = 2-3+1 =0). For tricritical points to be observed, one needs a mixture with more components. It can be shown that three is the ''minimum'' number of components for which these points can appear. In this case, one may have a two-dimensional region of three-phase coexistence (''F'' = 2-3+3 =2) (thus, each point in this region corresponds to a triple point). This region will terminate in two critical lines of two-phase coexistence; these two critical lines ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helium-3
Helium-3 (3He see also helion) is a light, stable isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron (the most common isotope, helium-4, having two protons and two neutrons in contrast). Other than protium (ordinary hydrogen), helium-3 is the only stable isotope of any element with more protons than neutrons. Helium-3 was discovered in 1939. Helium-3 occurs as a primordial nuclide, escaping from Earth's crust into its atmosphere and into outer space over millions of years. Helium-3 is also thought to be a natural nucleogenic and cosmogenic nuclide, one produced when lithium is bombarded by natural neutrons, which can be released by spontaneous fission and by nuclear reactions with cosmic rays. Some of the helium-3 found in the terrestrial atmosphere is also an artifact of atmospheric and underwater nuclear weapons testing. Much speculation has been made over the possibility of helium-3 as a future energy source. Unlike most nuclear fusion reactions, the fusion of helium-3 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helium-4
Helium-4 () is a stable isotope of the element helium. It is by far the more abundant of the two naturally occurring isotopes of helium, making up about 99.99986% of the helium on Earth. Its nucleus is identical to an alpha particle, and consists of two protons and two neutrons. Alpha decay of heavy elements in the Earth's crust is the source of most naturally occurring helium-4 on Earth, produced after the planet cooled and solidified. While it is also produced by nuclear fusion in stars, most helium-4 in the Sun and in the universe is thought to have been produced by the Big Bang, and is referred to as " primordial helium". However, primordial helium-4 is largely absent from the Earth, having escaped during the high-temperature phase of Earth's formation. Helium-4 makes up about one quarter of the ordinary matter in the universe by mass, with almost all of the rest being hydrogen. When liquid helium-4 is cooled to below , it becomes a superfluid, with properties that are ver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnet
A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, steel, nickel, cobalt, etc. and attracts or repels other magnets. A permanent magnet is an object made from a material that is magnetized and creates its own persistent magnetic field. An everyday example is a refrigerator magnet used to hold notes on a refrigerator door. Materials that can be magnetized, which are also the ones that are strongly attracted to a magnet, are called ferromagnetic (or ferrimagnetic). These include the elements iron, nickel and cobalt and their alloys, some alloys of rare-earth metals, and some naturally occurring minerals such as lodestone. Although ferromagnetic (and ferrimagnetic) materials are the only ones attracted to a magnet strongly enough to be commonly considered magnetic, all other substances respond weakly to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ANNNI Model
In statistical physics, the axial (or anisotropic) next-nearest neighbor Ising model, usually known as the ANNNI model, is a variant of the Ising model in which competing ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic exchange interactions couple spins at nearest and next-nearest neighbor sites along one of the crystallographic axes of the lattice. The model is a prototype for complicated spatially modulated magnetic superstructures in crystals. To describe experimental results on magnetic orderings in erbium, the model was introduced in 1961 by Roger Elliott from the University of Oxford, . The model has given its name in 1980 by Michael E. Fisher and Walter Selke., who analysed it first by Monte Carlo methods, and then by low temperature series expansions, showing the fascinating complexity of its phase diagram, including devil's staircases and a Lifshitz point. Indeed, it provides, for two- and three-dimensional systems, a theoretical basis for understanding numerous experimental obser ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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