Determination of the Critical Exponents for the Isotropic-Nematic Phase Transition in a System of Long Rods on Two-dimensional Lattices: Universality of the Transition

D. A. MATOZ-FERNANDEZ; D. H. LINARES; A. J. RAMIREZ-PASTOR

EUROPHYSICS LETTERS

EPL ASSOCIATION

Año: 2008 vol. 82 p. 50007 - 50011

0295-5075

Monte Carlo simulations and finite-size scalinganalysis have been carried out to study the critical behavior anduniversality for the isotropic-nematic phase transition in asystem of long straight rigid rods of length $k$ ($k$-mers) ontwo-dimensional lattices. The nematic phase, characterized by abig domain of parallel $k$-mers, is separated from the isotropicstate by a continuous transition occurring at a finite density.The determination of the critical exponents, along with thebehavior of Binder cumulants, indicate that the transition belongsto the 2D Ising universality class for square lattices and thethree-state Potts universality class for triangular lattices.