Orientational Phase Transition in solid C_60: Bifurcation Approach

TL;DR

This paper presents a bifurcation analysis of an angular interaction model to describe the orientational phase transition in solid C_60, aligning well with experimental observations.

Contribution

It introduces a simple mean field model and analyzes bifurcations to explain the orientational phase transition in solid C_60.

Findings

Quantitative agreement with experimental data

Identification of bifurcation points in the model

Description of the phase transition mechanism

Abstract

A simple model for the angular dependent interaction between C_60 molecules on the face-centered cubic lattice is proposed. The bifurcations of the solutions of the nonlinear integral equations for orientational distribution functions in the mean field approximation are analyzed and the orientational phase transition in solid C_60 is described. The quantitative results for the orientational phase transition are in accordance with experimental data.