English

Anomalous Elasticity of Polymer Cholesterics

Condensed Matter 2009-10-22 v2

Abstract

We show that polymer cholesterics have much longer pitches than comparable short molecule cholesterics, due to their anomalous elasticity. The pitch PP of a chiral mixture with concentration cc near the racemic (non-chiral) concentration cc^* diverges like ccν\vert c-c^*\vert^{-\nu} with ν=1.43±0.04\nu=1.43 \pm 0.04 (for short molecule cholesterics ν=1\nu=1). The short molecule law is recovered for polymers of finite molecular length \ell once the pitch is longer than a length that diverges like γ\ell^\gamma with γ=0.67±0.01\gamma=0.67 \pm 0.01. Our predictions could be tested by measurements of the pitch in DNA.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9408041,
  title  = {Anomalous Elasticity of Polymer Cholesterics},
  author = {Randall D. Kamien and John Toner},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9408041},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

12 pages, Plain TeX, (1 postscript figure, compressed, uuencoded and appended to paper), minor corrections, IASSNS-HEP-94/48