Dirt Softens Soap: Anomalous Elasticity of Disordered Smectics

Abstract

We show that a smectic in a disordered medium (e.g., aerogel) exhibits anomalous elasticity, with the compression modulus $B(\mathbf{k})$ vanishing and the bend modulus $K(\mathbf{k})$ diverging as $\mathbf{k}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$. In addition, the effective disorder develops long ranged correlations. These divergences are much stronger than those driven by thermal fluctuations in pure smectics, and are controlled by a zero temperature glassy fixed point, which we study in an $\ensuremath{\epsilon}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}5\ensuremath{-}d$ expansion. We discuss the experimental implications of these theoretical predictions.

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• Physical Review Letters - View
• arXiv (Cornell University) - View - PDF
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