Related papers: Surface free energies for nematic shells
Using the density functional formalism we derive expression for the distortion free energy for systems with continuous broken symmetry and use it to derive expression for the elastic constants of smectic phases in which director is tilted…
A nematic liquid crystal confined to the surface of a sphere exhibits topological defects of total charge $+2$ due to the topological constraint. In equilibrium, the nematic field forms four $+1/2$ defects, located at the corners of a…
Free interfaces of liquid crystals tend to minimise both capillarity and anchoring forces. Here we study nematic films in planar and radial geometries with antagonistic anchoring boundary conditions and one deformable interface. Assuming a…
The twist-bend nematic phase, $N_{\rm TB}$, may be viewed as a heliconical molecular arrangement in which the director $\bf n$ precesses uniformly about an extra director field, $\bf t$. It corresponds to a nematic ground state exhibiting…
Two-dimensional nematics possess peculiar properties that have been studied recently using computer simulation and various theoretical models. Here we review our own contribution to the field using density-functional theory, and present…
In a recent paper by Iglesias, Rumpf and Scherzer (Found. Comput. Math. 18(4), 2018) a variational model for deformations matching a pair of shapes given as level set functions was proposed. Its main feature is the presence of anisotropic…
We consider nematic liquid crystals in a bounded, convex polyhedron described by a director field n(r) subject to tangent boundary conditions. We derive lower bounds for the one-constant elastic energy in terms of topological invariants.…
Motivated by a long-standing debate concerning the nature and interrelations of surface-tension variables in fluid membranes, we reformulate the thermodynamics of a membrane vesicle as a generic two-dimensional finite system enclosing a…
The nonlinear elastic properties of nematic liquid crystals have acquired new interest with the recent experimental observation of bulk modulated nematic phases which are composed by achiral molecules. We extend the Oseen-Zocher-Frank's…
The mechanics of a flexible membrane decorated with a nematic liquid-crystal texture is considered in a variational framework. The variations on the splay, twist and the bend energy of the nematics are obtained from the local deformations…
The phase-field-crystal model for liquid crystals is solved numerically in two spatial dimensions. This model is formulated with three position-dependent order parameters, namely the reduced translational density, the local nematic order…
We study a discrete version of a biaxial nematic liquid crystal model with external fields via an approach based on the solution of differential identities for the partition function. In the thermodynamic limit, we derive the free energy of…
We consider three-dimensional reshaping of a thin nematoelastic film upon nematic-isotropic transition in the field of a charge one topological defect, leading to either cone or anticone (d-cone) shells. The analysis is based on the…
Basing our arguments on the theory of active liquid crystals, we demonstrate both analytically and numerically, that the activity can induce an effective free energy which enhances ordering in extensile systems of active rods and in…
We perform energy spectrum analysis of the active turbulence in 3D bulk active nematic using continuum numerical modelling. Specifically, we calculate the spectra of two main energy contributions---kinetic energy and nematic elastic…
Using agent-based simulations of self-propelled particles subject to short-range repulsion and nematic alignment we explore the dynamical phases of a dense active material confined to the surface of a sphere. We map the dynamical phase…
We study the hydrodynamics of a freely-standing smectic-A film in the isothermal, incompressible limit theoretically by analyzing the linearized hydrodynamic equations of motion with proper boundary conditions. The dynamic properties for…
We numerically study the multi-scale properties of a 2d active gel to address the energy transfer mechanism. We find that activity is able to excite long-ranged distortions of the nematic pattern giving rise to spontaneous laminar flows and…
Active materials are capable of converting free energy into directional motion, giving rise to striking dynamical phenomena. Developing a general understanding of their structure in relation to the underlying non-equilibrium physics would…
We use density--functional theory to study the structure of two-dimensional defects inside a circular nematic nanocavity. The density, nematic order parameter, and director fields, as well as the defect core energy and core radius, are…