Elastically driven polaron patterns: Stripes and glass phases

We investigate a model of elasticity-driven polaron pattern formation on a two-dimensional lattice at finite temperatures. We show that, at high densities, polaron stripes (glass-like) form when the gas is cooled. These stripes melt to a polaron gas upon heating. We attribute the emergent behavior to the role of the long-range, directional elastic interactions that favor a minimum in energy for polaron stripe formation.