Anisotropic wave propagation in nematic liquid crystals
Soft Condensed Matter
2014-05-13 v2 Fluid Dynamics
Abstract
Despite the fact that quantitative experimental data have been available for more than forty years now, nematoacoustics still poses intriguing theoretical and experimental problems. In this paper, we prove that the main observed features of acoustic wave propagation through a nematic liquid crystal cell -- namely, the anisotropy of sound velocity and its frequency dependence -- may be plausibly explained by a first-gradient continuum theory characterized by a hyperelastic anisotropic response from an evolving relaxed configuration. We compare and contrast our proposal with a competing theory where the liquid crystal is modeled as an isotropically compressible, anisotropic second-gradient fluid.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1311.1802,
title = {Anisotropic wave propagation in nematic liquid crystals},
author = {Paolo Biscari and Antonio DiCarlo and Stefano S. Turzi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1311.1802},
year = {2014}
}