Anomalous Fluctuations near Nonequilibrium Soft Transitions. II: -- Symmetry-Breaking Transitions --

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Abstract
Critical fluctuations of a nonequilibrium soft intrinsic symmetry-breaking transition are investigated by taking the Rayleigh-Bénard instability in a nematic liquid crystal as an example. This system is particularly important because critical fluctuations have been observed experimentally due to the strong orientational fluctuations. In this actual system, there appear not only fluctuations of the thermal origin but also those of the sorroundings which cause multiplicative stochastic forces. These fluctuations are taken into account by deriving a stochastic Ginzburg-Landau type equation for an order-parameter density with the aid of the projector method for the contraction of state variables developed in previous papers. Then, in addition to anomalous fluctuations of the order parameter generated by the coupling to irrelevant variables, various new behaviors such as a shift of the critical point due to a multiplicative stochastic force and a smoothing of the transition due to an inhomogeneous term are illustrated.

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