An explanation for the glass-like anomaly in the low-temperature specific heat of incommensurate phases

Abstract

An explanation for the glass-like anomaly observed in the low-temperature specific heat of incommensurate phases is proposed. The key point of this explanation is the proper account for the phason damping when computing the thermodynamic magnitudes. The low-temperature specific heat of the incommensurate phases is discussed within three possible scenarios for the phason dynamics: no phason gap, static phason gap and a phason gap of dynamical origin. Existing NMR and inelastic scattering data indicate that these scenarios are possible in biphenyl, blue bronze ${\mathrm{K}}_{0.30}\mathrm{Mo}{\mathrm{O}}_3$ and BCPS respectively. Estimates of the corresponding low-temperature specific heat are in reasonable agreement with the experiments.

arXiv comment9 pages, 1 figure

References in corpus (3)

• Single particle and collective excitations in the one-dimensional charge density wave solid K0.3MoO3 probed in real time by femtosecond spectroscopy
• Low-temperature specific heat of real crystals: Possibility of leading contribution of optical and short-wavelength acoustical vibrations
• Thermodynamics of vortex lines in layered superconductors

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• Extended linear-in-$T$ resistivity due to electron-phason scattering in moiré superlattices
• Glassy heat capacity from overdamped phasons and a hypothetical phason-induced superconductivity in incommensurate structures
• Low temperature specific heat of glasses: a non-extensive approach
• Excess speicific heat of the gapped sliding phonons in the incommensurate composite crystal Sr${}_{14}$Cu${}_{24}$O${}_{41}$
• Atomistic mechanisms of dynamics in a two-dimensional dodecagonal quasicrystal
• Charge density wave and Weyl Semimetal phase in Y${}_2$Ir${}_2$O${}_7$
• Temperature crossovers in the specific heat of amorphous magnets