A Rigidity Result for a Reduced Model of a Cubic-to-Orthorhombic Phase Transition in the Geometrically Linear Theory of Elasticity

Abstract: We study a simplified two-dimensional model for a cubic-to-orthorhombic phase transition occuring in certain shape-memory-alloys. In the low temperature regime the linear theory of elasticity predicts various possible patterns of martensite arrangements: Apart from the well known laminates this phase transition displays additional structures involving four martensitic variants -- so called crossing twins. Introducing a variational model including surface energy, we show that these structures are rigid under small energy perturbations. Combined with an upper bound construction this gives the optimal scaling behavior of incompatible microstructures. These results are related to papers by Capella and Otto as well as to a paper by Dolzmann and M\"uller.