Symmetry Breaking and Second Order Phase Transitions

摘要

In an earlier paper we showed that symmetry breaking could be induced in the triiodide ion by varying the solvent. Experiments and simulations suggest that protic solvents which can form hydrogen bonds with a negative ion cause symmetry breaking of the ion, so that the charge becomes concentrated at one end of the ion and the corresponding bond elongates. We suggested that one could draw an analogy between the mean field Ising model with free energy,