The antisymmetry of distortions

Brian K. VanLeeuwen and Venkatraman Gopalan ()
Additional contact information
Brian K. VanLeeuwen: Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
Venkatraman Gopalan: Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Distortions are ubiquitous in nature. Under perturbations such as stresses, fields or other changes, a physical system reconfigures by following a path from one state to another; this path, often a collection of atomic trajectories, describes a distortion. Here we introduce an antisymmetry operation called distortion reversal that reverses a distortion pathway. The symmetry of a distortion pathway is then uniquely defined by a distortion group; it has the same form as a magnetic group that involves time reversal. Given its isomorphism to magnetic groups, distortion groups could have a commensurate impact in the study of distortions, as the magnetic groups have had in the study of magnetic structures. Distortion symmetry has important implications for a range of phenomena such as structural and electronic phase transitions, diffusion, molecular conformational changes, vibrations, reaction pathways and interface dynamics.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms9818 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms9818

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9818

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().