We discuss some recent work in which the non-minimal coupling of gravity with a self-interacting scalar field in the presence of matter can lead to a phase transition when the sign of gravitational interaction changes. It is found that gravity becomes repulsive above a critical temperature which may lie in the range 10²⁴ to 10³²K which obtains in the very early universe (10⁻³⁵ to 10⁻⁴³ sec) of the standard model. The results are intimately connected with big bang and possible removal of singularity.

In this short review we present the consequences of the spontaneously broken gauge theories will lead to when describing matter at high temperature and density. It appears various phase transitions should occur leading to the restoration of symmetry at high temperature of the originally broken one. Symmetry behaviour in external magnetic fields and in the early universe has been briefly mentioned.

Recently there have been important developments in the determination of neutron star masses which put severe constraints on the composition and equation of state (EOS) of the neutron star matter. Here we study the effect of quark and nuclear matter mixed phase on mass radius relationship of neutron stars employing recent models from two classes of EOS’s and discuss their implications.

Using Landau theory of phase transition, expressions for gyrotropic coefficients and piezoelectric coefficients are obtained for barium titanate in the tetragonal phase. Both coefficients vanish at the ferroelectric phase transition temperature. The piezoelectric coefficients tallied with the literature values. The attenuation coefficients for elastic waves propagating along the principal directions in tetragonal, orthorhombic and rhombohedral phases are derived based on Landau theory. It is predicted that there will be slight amplification for both longitudinal and transverse modes in the rhombohedral phase at a temperature close to the rhombohedral phase transition temperature.

We study the vacuum structure in QCD in a nonperturbative manner using a variational approach with gluon condensates. We show that in Coulomb gauge as the coupling becomes moderately strong, the perturbative vacuum of QCD becomes unstable leading to gluon condensates and a gauge dependent effective mass for the gluons related to the gauge independent value of 〈vac‖G_μν^aG^aμν‖vac〉 of Shifmanet al.

The anomalies in second order elastic constants have been derived for barium titanate for the phase transition from orthorhombic to rhombohedral state. The equilibrium values of order parameter, strain variables and fluctuations in order parameter have been derived using stability conditions and Landau-Khalatnikov equations respectively. Expression for shift in specific heat is obtained. All the anomalies in second order elastic constants have been derived and relations among them reported. The numerical values of anomalies in the individual constants are calculated and their variation is represented graphically. Changes in elastic constants occur over a range of temperature of the order 10⁻²K.

It is found that the unrelaxed impurity dipoles can arrange themselves linearly in the structure joining each other end-to-end in pseudocubic [110] direction at the tetragonal to the orthorhombic phase transition. It is shown that this alignment precedes the domain formation at the phase transition, which implies quick movements of the dipoles in the structure, and a strong dipolar interaction. The experiments with the application of dc fields to the crystals showed that the dipolar interaction becomes stronger with the field. The dipoles can see each other across the existing domain walls implying the large distance nature of the interaction. The observation of impurity clusters arranged in pseudocubic [110] direction confirmed the large distance nature of the interaction. It is concluded that this strong, large distance interaction is very interesting in as much as such an interaction of dipoles forms the basis of ferroelectricity.

Pressure induced phase transition in mercurous chloride has been studied by high pressure x-ray diamond anvil cell. The change in diffraction pattern started and ended at a pressure of about 5 kbar and 20 kbar respectively. The patterns recorded at 20 kbar could be indexed basing on an orthorhombic lattice, with lattice parametersa=4.23 Å,b=4.54 Å andc=10.44 Å.