Spontaneous chirality in simple systems

Two simple examples of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking are presented. The first is close-packed cylindrically confined spheres. As the cylinder diameter is varied, one obtains a variety of chiral phases. The second example involves unconfined dipolar particles with an isotropic attraction, whic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2000-10, Vol.85 (17), p.3652-3655
Main Authors: Pickett, GT, Gross, M, Okuyama, H
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Two simple examples of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking are presented. The first is close-packed cylindrically confined spheres. As the cylinder diameter is varied, one obtains a variety of chiral phases. The second example involves unconfined dipolar particles with an isotropic attraction, which also exhibits chiral ground states. We speculate that a dilute magnetorheological fluid film, with the addition of smaller particles to provide an attractive entropic interaction, will exhibit a chiral columnar ground state.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.85.3652