Phase transitions in a system of hard $Y$-shaped particles on the triangular lattice

Abstract

We study the different phases and the phase transitions in a system of $Y$-shaped particles, examples of which include Immunoglobulin-G and trinaphthylene molecules, on a triangular lattice interacting exclusively through excluded volume interactions. Each particle consists of a central site and three of its six nearest neighbours chosen alternately, such that there are two types of particles which are mirror images of each other. We study the equilibrium properties of the system using grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations that implements an algorithm with cluster moves that is able to equilibrate the system at densities close to full packing. We show that, with increasing density, the system undergoes two entropy-driven phase transitions with two broken-symmetry phases. At low densities, the system is in a disordered phase. As intermediate phases, there is a solid-like sublattice phase in which one type of particle is preferred over the other and the particles preferentially occupy one of four sublattices, thus breaking both particle-symmetry as well as translational invariance. At even higher densities, the phase is a columnar phase, where the particle-symmetry is restored, and the particles preferentially occupy even or odd rows along one of the three directions. This phase has translational order in only one direction, and breaks rotational invariance. From finite size scaling, we demonstrate that both the transitions are first order in nature. We also show that the simpler system with only one type of particles undergoes a single discontinuous phase transition from a disordered phase to a solid-like sublattice phase with increasing density of particles.

arXiv comment10 pages, 12 figures

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• The freezing phase transition in hard core lattice gases on triangular lattice with exclusion up to seventh next-nearest neighbor
• Three stable phases and thermodynamic anomaly in a binary mixture of hard particles
• Hard core lattice gas with third next-nearest neighbor exclusion on triangular lattice: one or two phase transitions?
• Thermodynamic behavior of binary mixtures of hard spheres: Semianalytical solutions on a Husimi lattice built with cubes
• Global phase diagram of Coulomb-interacting anisotropic Weyl semimetals with disorder
• Rejection-free cluster Wang-Landau algorithm for hard-core lattice gases
• Condensation and crystal nucleation in a lattice gas with a realistic phase diagram
• Phases of the hard-plate lattice gas on a three-dimensional cubic lattice