The Cosmological Kibble Mechanism in the Laboratory: String Formation in Liquid Crystals
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2011-07-19 v1 Condensed Matter
High Energy Physics - Theory
Abstract
We have observed the production of strings (disclination lines and loops) via the Kibble mechanism of domain (bubble) formation in the isotropic to nematic phase transition of a sample of uniaxial nematic liquid crystal. The probablity of string formation per bubble is measured to be . This is in good agreement with the theoretical value expected in two dimensions for the order parameter space of a simple uniaxial nematic liquid crystal.
Cite
@article{arxiv.hep-ph/9208233,
title = {The Cosmological Kibble Mechanism in the Laboratory: String Formation in Liquid Crystals},
author = {M. J. Bowick and L. Chandar and E. A. Schiff and A. M. Srivastava},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-ph/9208233},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
17 pages, in TEX, 2 figures (not included, available on request)