Alternative characterization of the nematic transition in deposition of rods on two-dimensional lattices.

Abstract

We revisit the problem of excluded volume deposition of rigid rods of length k unit cells over square lattices. Two new features are introduced: (a) two new short-distance complementary order parameters, called Π and Σ, are defined, calculated, and discussed to deal with the phases present as coverage increases; (b) the interpretation is now done beginning at the high-coverage ordered phase which allows us to interpret the low-coverage nematic phase as an ergodicity breakdown present only when k≥7. In addition the data analysis invokes both mutability (dynamical information theory method) and Shannon entropy (static distribution analysis) to further characterize the phases of the system. Moreover, mutability and Shannon entropy are compared, and we report the advantages and disadvantages they present for their use in this problem.