Molecular-dynamics studies of distortive phase transitions: Evidence for the failure of the soft-phonon picture?

Molecular-dynamics studies of a model belonging to the Ising universality class, covering the order-disorder and displacive regime of distortive phase transitions, are reviewed. The results offer a unified picture of these transitions in terms of clusters and their dynamics. As a consequence, the soft-phonon picture sufficiently close to Tc is expected to fail. © 1980, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.