Multicritical behavior in topological phase transitions

Topological Aspects of Phase Transitions

In the past decade and a half, an alternative analysis of phase transitions, based in the topological behavior of system configuration spaces, has been introduced. This method offers a new understanding of many phase transitions, particularly those in finite systems, using topology and manifold behavior. While the broadest hypotheses offered by researchers have proven overly optimistic, the met...

Topological Phase Transitions in Multicomponent Superconductors.

We study the phase transition between a trivial and a time-reversal-invariant topological superconductor in a single-band system. By analyzing the interplay of symmetry, topology, and energetics, we show that for a generic normal state band structure, the phase transition occurs via extended intermediate phases in which even- and odd-parity pairing components coexist. For inversion-symmetric sy...

Topological transitions in Berry's phase interference effects.

Pressure-induced topological phase transitions in membranes.

Some highly unusual features of a lipid-water liquid crystal are revealed by high pressure x-ray diffraction, light scattering and dilatometric studies of the lamellar (bilayer Lα) to nonlamellar inverse hexagonal (HII) phase transition. (i) The size of the unit cell of the HII phase increases with increasing pressure. (ii) The transition volume, ∆Vbh, decreases and appears to vanish as the pre...

Multifarious topological quantum phase transitions in two-dimensional topological superconductors

We study the two-dimensional topological superconductors of spinless fermions in a checkerboard-lattice Chern-insulator model. With the short-range p-wave superconducting pairing, multifarious topological quantum phase transitions have been found and several phases with high Chern numbers have been observed. We have established a rich phase diagram for these topological superconducting states. ...