title: Smectic-A-smectic-C phase transition in biaxial disordered environments.
abstract: We study the smectic-A-smectic-C phase transition in biaxial disordered environments, e.g., fully anisotropic aerogel. We find that both the A and C phases belong to the universality class of the "XY Bragg glass," and therefore have quasi-long-ranged translational smectic order. The phase transition itself belongs to a new universality class, which we study using an ε=7/2-d expansion. We find a stable fixed point, which implies a continuous transition, the critical exponents of which we calculate.
authors.affiliation: College of Science, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Leiming
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Toner
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D008027:Light; D050866:Liquid Crystals / Q000737:chemistry*; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008958:Models, Molecular; D044367:Phase Transition; D012031:Refractometry; D012542:Scattering, Radiation