Topological aspects of geometrical signatures of phase transitions.
Certain geometric properties of submanifolds of configuration space are numerically investigated for classical phi(4) models in one and two dimensions. Peculiar behaviors of the computed geometric quantities are found only in the two-dimensional case, when a phase transition is present. The observed phenomenology strongly supports, though in an indirect way, a recently proposed topological conjecture about a topology change of the configuration space submanifolds as counterpart to a phase transition.
Franzosi
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Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Firenze, Largo Enrico Fermi 2, 50125 Firenze, Italy. franzosi@fi.infn.it
Casetti
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Spinelli
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Pettini
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