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Ensembles with long-range interactions between particles are promising for revealing strong quantum collective effects and many-body phenomena. Here we study the ground-state phase diagram of a two-dimensional Bose system with quadrupolar interactions using a diffusion Monte Carlo technique. We predict a quantum phase transition from a gas to a solid phase. The Lindemann ratio and the condensate fraction at the transition point are $\gamma=0.269(4)$ and $n_0/n=0.031(4)$, correspondingly. We observe the strong rotonization of the collective excitation branch in the vicinity of the phase transition point. Our results can be probed using state-of-the-art experimental systems of various nature, such as quasi-two-dimensional systems of quadrupolar excitons in transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) trilayers, quadrupolar molecules, and excitons or Rydberg atoms with quadrupole moments induced by strong magnetic fields., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures

The ground-state properties of two-component bosonic mixtures in a one-dimensional optical lattice are studied both from few- and many-body perspectives. We rely directly on a microscopic Hamiltonian with attractive inter-component and repulsive intra-component interactions to demonstrate the formation of a quantum liquid. We reveal that its formation and stability can be interpreted in terms of finite-range interactions between dimers. We derive an effective model of composite bosons (dimers) which correctly captures both the few- and many-body properties and validate it against exact results obtained by DMRG method for the full Hamiltonian. The threshold for the formation of the liquid coincides with the appearance of a bound state in the dimer-dimer problem and possesses a universality in terms of the two-body parameters of the dimer-dimer interaction, namely scattering length and effective range. For sufficiently strong effective dimer-dimer repulsion we observe fermionization of the dimers which form an effective Tonks-Girardeau state. Finally, we identify conditions for the formation of a solitonic solution., Comment: Main text: 6 pages and 3 figures. Appendix: 2 pages and 2 figures

The design of phase boundaries has now become a consolidated strategy to improve the functional properties of piezoelectric oxides because of the unique properties that may be obtained in their vicinity. In particular, polymorphic phase boundaries (PPBs) have attracted significant interest in recent years because they represent a significant breakthrough in terms of enhanced piezoelectric activity of lead-free piezoelectric oxides. PPBs are temperature-driven phase transitions where both intrinsic and extrinsic contributions maximize, thereby enhancing the macroscopic properties of piezoelectric materials. This tutorial discusses potassium–sodium–niobate-based systems as model materials to reveal some of the most relevant advances in the design of PPBs through compositional modifications. We focus on how PPBs can be modulated by engineered doping and also discuss the direct relation between PPBs and the enhancement of piezoelectric activity. Finally, we briefly describe the main experimental techniques for detecting PPBs.

Dynamical reaction-diffusion processes and meta-population models are standard modeling approaches for a wide variety of phenomena in which local quantities - such as density, potential and particles - diffuse and interact according to the physical laws. Here, we study the behavior of two basic reaction-diffusion processes ($B \to A$ and $A+B \to 2B$) defined on networks with heterogeneous topology and no limit on the nodes' occupation number. We investigate the effect of network topology on the basic properties of the system's phase diagram and find that the network heterogeneity sustains the reaction activity even in the limit of a vanishing density of particles, eventually suppressing the critical point in density driven phase transitions, whereas phase transition and critical points, independent of the particle density, are not altered by topological fluctuations. This work lays out a theoretical and computational microscopic framework for the study of a wide range of realistic meta-populations models and agent-based models that include the complex features of real world networks., 22 pages, 4 figures. For related work and info, visit the Cx-Nets webpage at http://cxnets.googlepages.com/. Nature Physics, in press (2007)

Understanding the glass transition requires getting the picture of the dynamical processes that intervene in it. Glass-forming liquids show a characteristic decoupling of relaxation processes when they are cooled down towards the glassy state. The faster (βJG) process is still under scrutiny, and its full explanation necessitates information at the microscopic scale. To this aim, nuclear γ-resonance time-domain interferometry (TDI) has been utilized to investigate 5-methyl-2-hexanol, a hydrogen-bonded liquid with a pronounced βJG process as measured by dielectric spectroscopy. TDI probes in fact the center-of-mass, molecular dynamics at scattering-vectors corresponding to both inter- and intra-molecular distances. Our measurements demonstrate that, in the undercooled liquid phase, the βJG relaxation can be visualized as a spatially-restricted rearrangement of molecules within the cage of their closest neighbours accompanied by larger excursions which reach out at least the inter-molecular scale and are related to cage-breaking events. In-cage rattling and cage-breaking processes therefore coexist in the βJG relaxation.