TITLE:
Simple Landau Model of the Liquid-RII-RI Rotator Phases of Alkanes
AUTHORS:
Prabir K. Mukherjee, Santanu Dey
KEYWORDS:
Rotator Phases; Phase Transitions; Landau Theory
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Modern Physics,
Vol.3 No.1,
January
18,
2012
ABSTRACT: Simple Landau free energy function is presented to describe the Liquid-RII-RI phase sequence of alkanes and transitions between them. The order parameters necessary to describe these rotator phase transitions are identified. We present a mean-field description of the Liquid-RII and Liquid-RI transitions. General arguments are presented for the topology of the phase diagram in the vicinity of the Liquid-RII-RI triple point. Within this model the Liquid-RII and Liquid-RI transitions are found to be always strongly first order. Calculations based on this model agree qualitatively with experiments.