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CATEGORIES:Isaac Newton Institute Seminar Series
SUMMARY:Different flavours of the mean-field theory - Virg
 a\, E (Universit degli Studi di Pavia)
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20130320T115000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20130320T124000
UID:TALK44020AThttp://talks.cam.ac.uk
URL:http://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/44020
DESCRIPTION:Since the proposal for a remarkably simple theory 
 of ferromagnetism made by Weiss in 1906\, under th
 e assumption that each molecule suffered an effect
 ive magnetic field (le champ intrieur\, in Weiss' 
 words) mimicking the average action of all other m
 olecules\, the notion of mean field has grown and 
 acquired a life of its own. The most striking appl
 ication to liquid crystal science of the mean-fiel
 d formalism is perhaps the Maier-Saupe theory for 
 the nematic phase. Many other models and approxima
 tions are comprised under the general heading of m
 ean-field theory\, though often one may hardly fin
 d any trace of an average\, collective field there
 \, its place being taken instead by a generalized 
 order field. Some theories in this ample catalogue
  are variational\, while others are not. All featu
 re a key self-consistency condition\, which may in
 volve a probability distribution density as well a
 s an order field. The lecture will attempt to just
 ify the key self-consistency equatio n in a rigoro
 us way for the different flavours that theory has 
 taken.\n\n
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
CONTACT:Mustapha Amrani
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