title: Energy landscape and phase transitions in the self-gravitating ring model.
abstract: We apply a recently proposed criterion for the existence of phase transitions, which is based on the properties of the saddles of the energy landscape, to a simplified model of a system with gravitational interactions referred to as the self-gravitating ring model. We show analytically that the criterion correctly singles out the phase transition between a homogeneous and a clustered phase and also suggests the presence of another phase transition not previously known. On the basis of the properties of the energy landscape we conjecture on the nature of the latter transition.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Fisica and Centro per lo Studio delle Dinamiche Complesse, Università di Firenze, via G Sansone 1, I-50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy.
authors.forename: Cesare
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Nardini
authors.forename: Lapo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Casetti
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D004735:Energy Transfer; D015233:Models, Statistical; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D044367:Phase Transition