Ebook: Nonlinear Phenomena at Phase Transitions and Instabilities

This NATO Advanced Study Institute, held in Geilo between March 29th and April 9th 1981, was the sixth in a series devoted to the subject of phase transitions and instabilities. The present institute was intended to provide a forum for discussion of the importance of nonlinear phenomena associated with instabilities in systems as seemingly disparate as ferroelectrics and rotating buckets of oil. Ten years ago, at the first Geilo school, the report of a central peak in the fluctuation spectrum of SrTi0 close to its 3 106 K structural phase transition demonstrated that the simple soft-mode theory of such transitions was incomplete. The missing ingredient was the essential nonlinearity of the system. Parti­ cipants at this year's Geilo school heard assessments of a decade of experimental and theoretical effort which has been expended to elucidate the nature of this nonlinearity. The importance of order­ ed clusters and the walls which bound them was stressed in this con­ text. A specific type of wall, the soliton, was discussed by a number of speakers. New experimental results which purport to demonstrate the existence of solitons in a one-dimensional ferromagnet were presented. A detailed discussion was given of the role of solitons in transport phenomena in driven multistable systems, typified by a sine-Gordon chain.

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Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xii
Anharmonic Properties near Structural Phase Transitions....Pages 1-34
The Theory of Structural Phase Transitions: Universality and Quasi-Elastic Scattering Phenomena....Pages 35-68
Dynamic Correlations in the Ordered Phase of Perovskites....Pages 69-73
Nonlinear Excitations in some Anharmonic Lattice Models....Pages 75-79
On the Possibility to Create Nonthermal Solitons in a One Dimensional Magnetic Sine Gordon System....Pages 81-95
Transport and Fluctuations in Linear Arrays of Multistable Systems....Pages 97-103
Non-Linear Thermal Convection....Pages 105-109
Nematic Instability Induced by an Elliptical Shear....Pages 111-143
Instabilities and Fluctuations....Pages 145-172
Steady States, Limit Cycles and the Onset of Turbulence. A few Model Calculations and Exercises....Pages 173-180
The Physical Mechanism of Oscillatory and Finite Amplitude Instabilities in Systems with Competing Effects....Pages 181-203
Investigation of Fluctuations and Oscillatory States in Rayleigh-B?nard Systems by Neutron Scattering....Pages 205-247
A Rayleigh B?nard Experiment: Helium in a Small Box....Pages 249-254
Period Doubling Bifurcation Route to Chaos....Pages 255-258
Space-Time Symmetry in Doubly Periodic Circular Couette Flow....Pages 259-286
The Structure and Dynamics of Non-Stationary Taylor-Vortex Flow....Pages 287-293
Pattern Formation during Crystal Growth: Theory....Pages 295-301
Electrothermal Instabilities at Magnetic Critical Points....Pages 303-307
Instabilities During Crystal Growth (Experiments)....Pages 309-336
Periodic Fluctuations at the Solid Liquid Interface of Salol....Pages 337-341
On the Dynamics of Epitaxial Phase Transformations....Pages 343-370
The Pinning of a Domain Wall by Weakened Bonds in Two Dimensions....Pages 371-378
Melting in Two Dimensions....Pages 379-389
Molecular Dynamics Study of 2-D Melting: Long Range Potentials....Pages 391-395
Experimental Studies of Two Dimensional Melting....Pages 397-424
An Unusual Polymorphism in the 2D Melting: The Smectic F and I Phases....Pages 425-431
Back Matter....Pages 433-462
....Pages 463-468