General Considerations of Homophone Sequences of Phase Transitions

Abstract

It is intended to investigate succeeding phase transitions in a crystalline substance not individually or separately but collectively or in recognition of them as a set of interrelated ones. Of conceivable various sequences or systems of transitions, the most fundamental are homophone systems that are each generated by one prototypic phase and one set of degenerate soft modes. The structure of a general homophone system is analysed with the introduction of “the rank of a ferroic phase” and a few other basic concepts.