DISCONTINUOUS PHASE TRANSITIONS IN CONDENSED MATTER: Symmetry Breaking in Bulk Martensite, Quasiperiodic and Low-Dimensional Nanostructures

Discontinuous (first-order) phase transitions constitute the most fundamental and widespread type of structural transitions existing in Nature, forming a large majority of the transitions found in elemental crystals, alloys, inorganic compounds, minerals and complex fluids. Nevertheless, only a small part of them, namely, weakly discontinuous transformations, were considered by phenomenological theories, leaving aside the most interesting from a theoretical point of view and the most import...