Ballistic properties of crystalline defects

TL;DR

This paper presents a new field theoretic approach to study the dynamics and energies of crystalline defects like dislocations and interstitials, linking to various existing methods and extending to other physical systems.

Contribution

It introduces a formalism that enables direct analysis of defect dynamics and energies, applicable to multiple systems beyond traditional crystal studies.

Findings

Explicit expressions for defect energies are provided.

Links established to previous numerical and theoretical approaches.

The formalism can be extended to diverse physical systems.

Abstract

We introduce a field theoretic formalism enabling the direct study of dislocation and interstitial dynamics. Explicit expressions for the energies of such defects are given. We provide links to earlier numerical, discrete elastic, time dependent Ginzburg Landau, and other approaches sought by numerous authors for the problem of defect dynamics. The formalism introduced in this article may be extended to address many other systems. Apart from their heavily studied role in dislocation mediated crystal melting, defect dynamics recently gained much interest due to their viable role in various electronic and other systems of current interest. These systems include, yet are not limited to, stripe phases of Quantum Hall liquids, theories addressing the melting of stripe phases in various doped oxides (including the high temperature cuprate superconductors, the nickelates, and manganates), defects in supersolids, as well as colloidal crystals.