Narrow Results

The low-temperature thermodynamics of a one-dimensional electron gas on a disordered lattice, which comes to existence when the inter-electron distances exceed noticeably the inter-site ones, has been studied. An efficient computer procedure, based on the presentation of the partition function as a product of random transfer-matrixes, has been developed for calculations of thermodynamic characteristics of the system under consideration. The lattice structures were varied from completely chaotic up to the strictly regular one. It has been established that for any degree of disorder the entropy and heat capacity of the system tend to zero linearly as the temperature is reduced. The conclusion about the gapless character of the elementary excitations spectrum has been made. An instability of one-dimensional electron gas on a disordered lattice has been revealed: under conditions of vanishingly small disordering of the lattice, the long-range order in the systems under consideration is broken by frustrations that are one-dimensional analogues of the frustrations in two- and three-dimensional spin glasses.

We study the two-dimensional Ising model with competing nearest-neighbour and diagonal interactions and investigate the phase diagram of this model. We show that the ground state at low temperatures is ordered either as stripes or as the Néel antiferromagnet. However, we also demonstrate that the energy of defects and dislocations in the lattice is close to the ground state of the system. Therefore, many locally stable (or metastable) states associated with local energy minima separated by energy barriers may appear forming a glass-like state.

We discuss the results in connection with two physically different systems. First, we deal with planar clusters of loops including a Josephson π-junction (a π-rings). Each π-ring carries a persistent current and behaves as a classical orbital moment. The type of particular state associated with the orientation of orbital moments in the cluster depends on the interaction between these orbital moments and can be easily controlled, i.e. by a bias current or by other means. Second, we apply the model to the analysis of the structure of the newly discovered two-dimensional form of carbon, graphene. Carbon atoms in graphene form a planar honeycomb lattice. Actually, the graphene plane is not ideal but corrugated. The displacement of carbon atoms up and down from the plane can be also described in terms of Ising spins, the interaction of which determines the complicated shape of the corrugated graphene plane.

The obtained results may be verified in experiments and are also applicable to adiabatic quantum computing where the states are switched adiabatically with the slow change of coupling constant.

We study the two-dimensional Ising model with competing nearest-neighbour and diagonal interactions and investigate the phase diagram of this model. We show that the ground state at low temperatures is ordered either as stripes or as the Néel antiferromagnet. However, we also demonstrate that the energy of defects and dislocations in the lattice is close to the ground state of the system. Therefore, many locally stable (or metastable) states associated with local energy minima separated by energy barriers may appear forming a glass-like state.

We discuss the results in connection with two physically different systems. First, we deal with planar clusters of loops including a Josephson π-junction (a π-rings). Each π-ring carries a persistent current and behaves as a classical orbital moment. The type of particular state associated with the orientation of orbital moments in the cluster depends on the interaction between these orbital moments and can be easily controlled, i.e. by a bias current or by other means. Second, we apply the model to the analysis of the structure of the newly discovered two-dimensional form of carbon, graphene. Carbon atoms in graphene form a planar honeycomb lattice. Actually, the graphene plane is not ideal but corrugated. The displacement of carbon atoms up and down from the plane can be also described in terms of Ising spins, the interaction of which determines the complicated shape of the corrugated graphene plane.

The obtained results may be verified in experiments and are also applicable to adiabatic quantum computing where the states are switched adiabatically with the slow change of coupling constant.