Critical behavior of attractive rigid rods on two-dimensional lattices

LONGONE P.; LINARES D. H.; RAMIREZ PASTOR A. J.

JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL PHYSICS

AMER INST PHYSICS

Año: 2010 vol. 132 p. 184701 - 184707

0021-9606

Using Monte Carlo simulations and finite- size scaling analysis, the critical behavior of attractive rigid rods of length k (k-mers) on square lattices at intermediate density has been studied. A nematic phase, characterized by a big domain of parallel k- mers, was found. This ordered phase is separated from the isotropic state by a continuous transition occurring at a intermediate density θc. Our study allowed us (1) to determine the dependence of θc on the size of the rods and the magnitude of the lateral interactions and (2) to obtain the critical exponents, which indicate that the transition belongs to the 2D Ising universality class.