Eur. Phys. J. B 29, 85-95 (2002)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2002-00265-y

Phasons, sliding modes and friction

¹ University of Nijmegen, 6525ED Nijmegen, The Netherlands
² University of Rennes, Campus de Beaulieu, 35042 Rennes, France
³ Physical Department, Moscow State University, 119992 Moscow, Russia

Corresponding author: ^a ted@sci.kun.nl

Received: 4 April 2002
Revised: 22 July 2002
Published online: 17 September 2002

Abstract

Aperiodic crystals may have additional low frequency modes related to the possibility to describe them in a higher-dimensional space. Dynamics associated with these degrees of freedom is called phasonic, but there are very different phenomena of this type. A discussion is given of the use of the term. The relation between phason modes, the crystal structure, and the modulation and sliding modes is discussed. Finally a relation with frictionless motion is studied.