Related papers: Liquid crystals and harmonic maps in polyhedral do…
We establish lower semi-continuity and strict convexity of the energy functionals for a large class of vector equilibrium problems in logarithmic potential theory. This in particular implies the existence and uniqueness of a minimizer for…
We investigate a minimal model for non-crystalline water, defined on a Husimi lattice. The peculiar random-regular nature of the lattice is meant to account for the formation of a random 4-coordinated hydrogen-bond network. The model turns…
We establish small energy H\"{o}lder bounds for minimizers $u_\varepsilon$ of \[E_\varepsilon (u):=\int_\Omega W(\nabla u)+ \frac{1}{\varepsilon^2} \int_\Omega f(u),\] where $W$ is a positive definite quadratic form and the potential $f$…
We consider an energy functional motivated by the celebrated $K_{13}$ problem in the Oseen-Frank theory of nematic liquid crystals. It is defined for sphere-valued functions and appears as the usual Dirichlet energy with an additional…
We obtain existence of minimizers for the $p$-capacity functional defined with respect to a centrally symmetric anisotropy for $1 < p<\infty$, including the case of a crystalline norm in $\mathbb R^N$. The result is obtained by a…
Minimizing the so-called "Dirichlet energy" with respect to the domain under a volume constraint is a standard problem in shape optimization which is now well understood. This article is devoted to a prototypal non-linear version of the…
We examine the dynamics of a compressible active nematic liquid crystal on a frictional substrate. When frictional damping dominates over viscous dissipation, we eliminate flow in favor of active stresses to obtain a minimal dynamical model…
We use molecular dynamics to study the ordering of a nematic liquid crystal around a spherical particle or droplet. Homeotropic boundary conditions and strong anchoring create a hedgehog director configuration on the particle surface and in…
Let $\mu>0$ be a fixed constant, and we prove that minimizers to the following energy functional \begin{align*} E_f(u,\Omega):=\int_{\Omega}|\nabla u|^2+\mu P(\Omega) \end{align*}exist among pairs $(\Omega,u)$ such that $\Omega$ is an…
We show that for any closed surface of genus greater than one and for any finite weighted graph filling the surface, there exists a hyperbolic metric which realizes the least Dirichlet energy harmonic embedding of the graph among a fixed…
In this article, we prove energy quantization for approximate (intrinsic and extrinsic) biharmonic maps into spheres where the approximate map is in $L \log L$. Moreover, we demonstrate that if the $L\log L$ norm of the approximate maps…
In this paper, we consider multi-valued graphs with a prescribed real analytic interface that minimize the Dirichlet energy. Such objects arise as a linearized model of area minimizing currents with real analytic boundaries and our main…
We introduce a family of hybrid discretisations for the numerical approximation of optimal control problems governed by the equations of immiscible displacement in porous media. The proposed schemes are based on mixed and discontinuous…
Electrified liquids are well known to be prone to a variety of interfacial instabilities that result in the onset of apparent interfacial singularities and liquid fragmentation. In the case of electrically conducting liquids, one of the…
We introduce several new models whose common feature is to take into account effects from topological vorticity. The macroscopic unknown is driven by a dissipative anomalous diffusion (of SQG-type) and is coupled with the orientation of the…
A singular potential method in the Q tensor order parameter representation of a nematic liquid crystal is used to study the equilibrium configuration of a disclination dipole. Unlike the well studied isotropic limit (the so called one…
Computer simulations are presented of the isotropic-to-nematic transition in a liquid crystal confined between two parallel plates a distance H apart. The plates are neutral and do not impose any anchoring on the particles. Depending on the…
We study the homogenized energy densities of periodic ferromagnetic Ising systems. We prove that, for finite range interactions, the homogenized energy density, identifying the effective limit, is crystalline, i.e. its Wulff crystal is a…
We analyse an energy minimisation problem recently proposed for modelling smectic-A liquid crystals. The optimality conditions give a coupled nonlinear system of partial differential equations, with a second-order equation for the…
We discuss thermotropic nematic liquid crystals in the mean-field regime. In the first part of this article, we rigorously carry out the mean-field limit of a system of $N$ rod-like particles as $N\to\infty$, which yields an effective…