Related papers: Continuum theory of tilted chiral smectic phases
We develop the elastic theory for inversion-asymmetric tethered membranes and use it to identify and study their possible phases. Asymmetry in a tethered membrane causes spontaneous curvature, which in general depends upon the local…
Various phase transitions in models for coupled charge-density waves are investigated by means of the $\epsilon$-expansion, mean-field theory, and Monte Carlo simulations. At zero temperature the effective action for the system with…
The temporal behaviour of segmentation clock oscillations show phase synchrony via mean field like coupling of delta protein restricting to nearest neighbours only, in a configuration of cells arranged in a regular three dimensional array.…
We consider the shear flow of well-aligned one-component smectic phases, such as thermotropic smectics and lamellar diblock copolymers, below the critical region. We show that, as a result of thermal fluctuations of the layers, parallel…
It is proposed that the apparent positive acceleration of the cosmological scale factor is due to the vacuum energy of an incomplete chiral phase transition in a hidden SU(2) sector. Constraints from primordial nucleosynthesis imply that…
We present a theory characterizing the phases emerging as a consequence of continuous symmetry-breaking in quantum and classical systems. In symmetry-breaking phases, dynamics is restricted due to the existence of a set of conserved charges…
We derive several versions of the cell theory for a crystal phase of hard equilateral triangles. To that purpose we analytically calculated the free area of a frozen oriented or freely rotating particle inside the cavity formed by its…
We propose a general formalism to characterize orientational frustration of smectic liquid crystals in confinement by interpreting the emerging networks of grain boundaries as objects with a topological charge. In a formal idealization,…
Starting from a commensurate triangular thin solid strip, confined within two hard structureless walls, a stretch along its length introduces a rectangular distortion. Beyond a critical strain the solid fails through nucleation of…
A ternary liquid crystalline mixture was designed to obtain a tilted hexatic smectic phase in the glassy state. Structural, electro-optic, and dielectric properties of the mixture are investigated, and selected measurements are also…
The fundamental problem of phase saturation of electrons in a disordered mesoscopic system at very low temperatures is addressed. The disorder in the medium has both static and dynamic components, the latter being in the form of two-level…
We explore the possibility that the large electroclinic effect observed in ferroelectric liquid crystals arises from the presence of an ordered array of disclination lines and walls. If the spacing of these defects is in the subvisible…
We consider a theoretical model for the chiral smectic A twisted ribbons observed in assemblies of fd viruses condensed by depletion forces. The depletion interaction is modeled by an edge energy assumed to be proportional to the depletant…
We present detailed systematic studies of structural transformations in thin liquid crystal films with the smectic-C to hexatic phase transition. For the first time all possible structures reported in the literature are observed for one…
Cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) have a characteristic length scale given by the pitch of the twisted stacking of their constituent rod-like molecules. Under homeotropic anchoring conditions where the molecules prefer to orient…
An unresolved issue in the theory of liquid crystals is the molecular basis of the electroclinic effect in the smectic-A phase. Recent x-ray scattering experiments suggest that, in a class of siloxane-containing liquid crystals, an electric…
The molecules in lyotropic membranes are typically aligned with the surface normal. When these molecules are chiral, there is a tendency for the molecular direction to twist. These competing effects can reach a compromise by producing…
Recently we have formulated theory of bi-layer-dimerized chiral liquid antiferroelectric crystals. The spontaneous polarization has been increased owing to the strong interaction of the aromatic cores of the rod like liquid crystal…
We report the first observation of the smectic C--smectic I (C--I) critical point by Xray diffraction studies on a binary system. This is in confirmity with the theoretical idea of Nelson and Halperin that coupling to the molecular tilt…
Even though chiral nematic phases were the first liquid crystals experimentally observed more than a century ago, the origin of the thermodynamic stability of cholesteric states is still unclear. In this Letter we address the problem by…