Abstract:
Recently, particular interest has been placed in the study of a strikingly counter-intuitive phenomenon: the clustering of purely repulsive soft particles. This contribution serves the purpose of both reviewing our current understanding of the multiple occupancy crystals and presenting details of recently developed tailor-cut approaches to the problem. We first indicate, by use of analytically tractable examples, how such a phenomenon can arise at all. We then show that the thermodynamic formalism has to be adapted when studying such systems and present a novel computer simulation technique apt to do so. Finally, we discuss the intriguing mechanical and structural responses of such systems upon increasing the density. © 2008 IOP Publishing Ltd.