Event-chain Monte Carlo simulations of the liquid to solid transition of two-dimensional decagonal colloidal quasicrystals.

In event-chain Monte Carlo simulations, we model colloidal particles in two dimensions that interact according to an isotropic short-ranged pair potential which supports the two typical length scales present in decagonal quasicrystals. We investigate the assembled structures as we vary the density and temperature. Our special interest is related to the transition from quasicrystal to liquid. In contrast to the KTHNY melting theory for quasicrystals which predicts an intermediate pentahedratic phase, we find a one-step first-order melting transition. However, we discover that the slow relaxation of phasonic flips, i.e. rearrangements of the particles due to additional degrees of freedom in quasicrystals, changes the positional correlation functions, to the extent that structures with long-range orientational correlations, but exponentially decaying positional correlations, are observed.