Emergence of a collective crystal in a classical system with long-range interactions

A one-dimensional long-range model of classical rotators with an extended degree of complexity, as compared to paradigmatic long-range systems, is introduced and studied. Working at constant density, in the thermodynamic limit one can prove the statistical equivalence with the Hamiltonian mean-field (HMF) model and α-HMF: a second-order phase transition is indeed observed at the critical energy threshold εc = 0.75. Conversely, when the thermodynamic limit is performed at infinite density (while keeping the length of the hosting interval L constant), the critical energy εc is modulated as a function of L. At low energy, a self-organized collective crystal phase is reported to emerge, which converges to a perfect crystal in the limit ǫ 0. To analyze the phenomenon, the equilibrium one-particle density function is analytically computed by maximizing the entropy. The transition and the associated critical energy between the gaseous and the crystal phase is computed. Molecular dynamics show that the crystal phase is apparently split into two distinct regimes, depending on the energy per particle ε. For small ε, particles are exactly located on the lattice sites; above an energy threshold ε, particles can travel from one site to another. However, ε does not signal a phase transition but reflects the finite time of observation: the perfect crystal observed for ε > 0 corresponds to a long-lasting dynamical transient, whose lifetime increases when the ε > 0 approaches zero.