On the Microscopic Origin of Cholesteric Pitch
Soft Condensed Matter
2009-10-28 v3 chem-ph
Statistical Mechanics
Abstract
We present a microscopic analysis of the instability of the nematic phase to chirality when molecular chirality is introduced perturbatively. We show that previously neglected short-range biaxial correlations play a crucial role in determining the cholesteric pitch. We propose an order parameter which quantifies the chirality of a molecule.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9607084,
title = {On the Microscopic Origin of Cholesteric Pitch},
author = {A. B. Harris and Randall D. Kamien and T. C. Lubensky},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9607084},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
RevTeX 3.0, 4 pages, one included eps figure. Published version