English

A variational analysis of nematic axisymmetric films: the covariant derivative case

Analysis of PDEs 2025-10-06 v3

Abstract

Nematic surfaces are thin fluid structures, ideally two-dimensional, endowed with an in-plane nematic order. In 2012, two variational models have been introduced by Giomi [11] and by Napoli and Vergori [29,28]. Both penalize the area of the surface and the gradient of the director: in [11] the covariant derivative of the director is considered, while [28] deals with the surface gradient. In this paper, a complete variational analysis of the model proposed by Giomi is performed for revolution surfaces spanning two coaxial rings.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2405.20154,
  title  = {A variational analysis of nematic axisymmetric films: the covariant derivative case},
  author = {Giulia Bevilacqua and Chiara Lonati and Luca Lussardi and Alfredo Marzocchi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.20154},
  year   = {2025}
}