Landau theory order parameter

The basic idea of a Ginzburg-Landau theory is to describe the system by a set of spatially varying order parameter fields, typically combinations of densities. One famous example is the one-order-parameter model of Gompper and Schick [173], which uses as the only variable 0, the density difference between oil and water, distributed according to the free energy functional... 

Random interface models for ternary systems share the feature with the Widom model and the one-order-parameter Ginzburg-Landau theory (19) that the density of amphiphiles is not allowed to fluctuate independently, but is entirely determined by the distribution of oil and water. However, in contrast to the Ginzburg-Landau approach, they concentrate on the amphiphilic sheets. Self-assembly of amphiphiles into monolayers of given optimal density is premised, and the free energy of the system is reduced to effective free energies of its internal interfaces. In the same spirit, random interface models for binary systems postulate self-assembly into bilayers and intro-... 

The construction of the phase diagram of a heteropolymer liquid in the framework of the WSL theory is based on the procedure of minimization of the Landau free energy T presented as a truncated functional series in powers of the order parameter with components i a(r) proportional to Apa(r). The coefficients of this series, known as vertex functions, are governed by the chemical structure of heteropolymer molecules. More precisely, the values of these coefficients are entirely specified by the generating functions of the chemical correlators. Hence, before constructing the phase diagram of the specimen of a heteropolymer liquid, one is supposed to preliminarily find these statistical characteristics of the chemical structure of this specimen. Here a pronounced interplay of the statistical physics and statistical chemistry of polymers is explicitly manifested. 

The Landau theory applies in the vicinity of a critical point where the order parameter is small and assumed continuous. The Gibbs function... 

The Landau theory predicts the symmetry conditions necessary for a transition to be thermodynamically of second order. The order parameter must in this case vary continuously from 0 to 1. The presence of odd-order coefficients in the expansion gives rise to two values of the transitional Gibbs energy that satisfy the equilibrium conditions. This is not consistent with a continuous change in r and thus corresponds to first-order phase transitions. For this reason all odd-order coefficients must be zero. Furthermore, the sign of b must change from positive to negative at the transition temperature. It is customary to express the temperature dependence of b as a linear function of temperature ... 

Salje (1985) interpreted overlapping (displacive plus Al-Si substitutional) phase transitions in albite in the light of Landau theory (see section 2.8.1), assigning two distinct order parameters Q n and to displacive and substitutional disorder and expanding the excess Gibbs free energy of transition in the appropriate Landau form ... 

According to the well-known Landau theory, the eigenvector of the order parameter in any second order solid-solid phase transition transforms according to an irreducible representation of the space group of the parent phase state. Furthermore, the free energy F=U -TS can be expanded around the transition temperature Tc in terms of the scalar order parameter p, which... 

Ferroelectric-paraelectric transitions can be understood on the basis of the Landau-Devonshire theory using polarization as an order parameter (Rao Rao, 1978). Xhe ordered ferroelectric phase has a lower symmetry, belonging to one of the subgroups of the high-symmetry disordered paraelectric phase. Xhe exact structure to which the paraelectric phase transforms is, however, determined by energy considerations. 

This relation is analogous to the equation of state for spin systems in the famous Landau theory of phase transitions. It reads, H = A0(T — Tc)t]/ + u0ij/3, where H is a magnetic field and i// is an order parameter, A0 and u0 being constants. In our problem, the left hand side of Eq. (2.41), which is a function of T and corresponds to H in spin systems. On the right hand side, the coefficient Vic — Vi which is determined by the degree of ionization, corresponds to the temperature parameter A0(T — Tc) in spin systems. Therefore, at yt = yu, we find T — Tc cc — c a with 8 = 3 near the critical point of ionic gels, where T— Tc plays the role of H in spin systems. 

An important step in developing the mean-field concept was done by Landau [8, 10]. Without discussing the relation between such fundamental quantities as disorder-order transitions and symmetry lowering, we just want to note here that his theory is based on thermodynamics and the derivation of the temperature dependence of the order parameter via the thermodynamic potential minimization (e.g., the free energy A(r),T)) which is a function of the order parameter. It is assumed that the function A(rj,T) is analytical in the parameter 77 and thus near the phase transition point could be expanded into the series in 77 usually it is a polynomial expansion with temperature-dependent coefficients. Despite the fact that such a thermodynamical approach differs from the original molecular field theory, they are quite similar conceptually. In particular, the r.h.s. of the equation of state for the pressure of gases or liquids and the external field in ferromagnetics, respectively, have the same polynomial form. 

The range of coherence follows naturally from the BCS theory, and we see now why it becomes short in alloys. The electron mean free path is much shorter in an alloy than in a pure metal, and electron scattering tends to break up the correlated pairs, so dial for very short mean free paths one would expect die coherence length to become comparable to the mean free path. Then the ratio k i/f (called the Ginzburg-Landau order parameter) becomes greater than unity, and the observed magnetic properties of alloy superconductors can be derived. The two kinds of superconductors, namely those with k < 1/-/(2T and those with k > l/,/(2j (the inequalities follow from the detailed theory) are called respectively type I and type II superconductors. 

Near the ODT, the composition profile of ordered microstructures is approximately sinusoidal (Fig. 2.1).The phase behaviour in this regime, where the blocks are weakly segregated, can then be modelled using Landau-Ginzburg theory, where the mean field free energy is expanded with reference to the average composition profile. The order parameter for A/B block copolymers may be defined as (Leibler 1980)... 

Within Landau-Ginzburg theory, the free energy functional near a second-order or weakly first-order phase transition is expanded in terms of an order parameter rj>(q) ... 

Early attempts to develop theories that accounted for the power-law behavior and the actual magnitudes of the various critical exponents include those by van der Waals for the (liquid + gas) transition, and Weiss for the (ferromagnetic + paramagnetic) transition. These and a later effort called the Landau theory have come to be known as mean field theories because they were developed using the average or mean value of the order parameter. These theories invariably led to values of the exponents that differed significantly from the experimentally obtained values. For example, both van der Waals and Weiss obtained a value of 0.50 for (3, while the observed value was closer to 0.35. 

Using the potential V(h)°ch2 in Eq. (110), one recognizes that Eq. (110) is formally identical to a Ginzburg-Landau theory of a second-order transition for T>TC(D), with h(x,y) the order parameter field [186,216]. Therefore, it is straightforward to read off the correlation length , associated with this transition at TC(D), namely... 

The report of the Meissner effect stimulated the London brothers to develop the London equations, which explained this effect, and which also predicted how far a static external magnetic field can penetrate into a superconductor. The next theoretical advance came in 1950 with the theory of Ginzburg and Landau, which described superconductivity in terms of an order parameter and provided a derivation for the London equations. Both of these theories are macroscopic or phenomenological in nature. In the same year, 1950, the... 

A Landau-de Gennes theory for the Frank constants of long semiflexible worm-Uke chains at low order parameter S gives (Shimada et al. 1988) K = K7, = 0K2 =... 

A final general consideration is that Landau theory is expected to give an accurate representation of changes in the physical and thermodynamic properties over wide PT intervals when a transition is accompanied by significant spontaneous strains. This is because the relatively long ranging influence of strain fields acts to suppress order parameter fluctuations. 

Equations of the form of Equation (4) form the basis of the analysis of strain and elasticity reviewed in this chapter. The issues to be addressed are (a) the geometry of strain, leading to standard equations for strain components in terms of lattice parameters, (b) the relationship between strain and the driving order parameter, and (c) the elastic anomalies which can be predicted on the basis of the resulting free energy functions. The overall approach is presented as a series of examples. For more details of Landau theory and an introduction to the wider literature, readers are referred to reviews by Bruce and Cowley (1981), Wadhawan (1982), Toledano et al. (1983), Bulou et al. (1992), Salje (1992a,b 1993), Redfern (1995), Carpenter et al. (1998a), Carpenter and Salje (1998). 

The application of Landau s (1937) theory of symmetry-changing phase transitions to order-disorder in silicates has been described very clearly by Carpenter (1985 1988) and is further discussed in a number of textbooks and seminal papers (Salje 1990, Putnis 1992). The essential feature behind the model is that the excess Gibbs energy can be described by an expansion of the order parameter of the type ... 

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