What do emulsification failure and Bose-Einstein condensation have in common?

¹ Department of Physics, University of Surrey Guildford, Surrey GU2 7XH, UK
² Grupo Interdisciplinar de Sistemas Complicados (GISC) Departamento de Matemá ti cas, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid Avda. de la Universidad, 30, E-28911 Leganés, Madrid, Spain

Corresponding authors: r.sear@surrey.ac.uk cuesta@math.uc3m.es

Received: 18 December 2000
Accepted: 30 May 2001

Abstract

Ideal bosons and classical ring polymers formed via self-assembly, are known to have the same partition function, and so analogous phase transitions. In ring polymers, the analogue of Bose-Einstein condensation occurs when a ring polymer of macroscopic size appears. We show that a transition of the same general form occurs within a whole class of systems with self-assembly, and illustrate it with the emulsification failure of a microemulsion phase of water, oil and surfactant. As with Bose-Einstein condensation, the transition occurs even in the absence of interactions.