Smectic- A and - C phases, and the transition between them, in uniaxial disordered environments.
We present a theory of the elasticity and fluctuations of the smectic- A and - C phases in uniaxial, anisotropic disordered environments: e.g., stretched aerogel. We find that, bizarrely, the low-temperature, lower-symmetry smectic- C phase is less translationally ordered than the high-temperature, higher-symmetry smectic- A phase, with short-range " m=1 Bragg glass" and algebraic " XY Bragg glass" order, respectively. The smectic- A -smectic- C (AC) phase transition belongs to a new universality class, whose fixed points and exponents we find in a d=5- expansion. We give very detailed predictions for the very rich light-scattering behavior of both phases and the critical point.
Chen
Leiming
L
Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität zu Köln, Zülpicher Strasse 77, D-50937 Köln, Germany.
Toner
John
J