Related papers: The Geometry of the Cholesteric Phase
We study the zeta-regularized determinant of a non self-adjoint elliptic operator on a closed odd-dimensional manifold. We show that, if the spectrum of the operator is symmetric with respect to the imaginary axis, then the determinant is…
Since a rigorous microscopic treatment of a nematic fluid system based on a pairwise interaction potential is immensely complex we had introduced a simple mean field potential which was a modification of the Maier-Saupe potential in a…
We consider the interaction potential between two chiral rod-like colloids which consist of a thin cylindrical backbone decorated with a helical charge distribution on the cylinder surface. For sufficiently slender coiled rods a simple…
Entangled polymers are deformed by a strong shear flow. The shape of the polymer, called the form factor, is measured by small angle neutron scattering. However, the real-space molecular structure is not directly available from the…
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…
We apply a recently developed technique to determine adapted coordinates for the sixth degree Landau-deGennes potential, in which the potential is specially simple, to analyze the possibility of a direct transition between the fully…
We theoretically investigate the threshold for the director reorientation from the homeotropic state to the hybrid homeotropic-planar state and vice versa in a cell filled with a flexoelectric nematic liquid crystal (NLC) subjected to an…
We obtain complete topological classification of states of nematic liquid crystal in the geometry of periodic array of rectangular posts between two parallel slabs, with tangent or normal boundary conditions. This classification has…
This paper reviews the complex ordered structures induced by chirality in liquid crystals. In general, chirality favors a twist in the orientation of liquid-crystal molecules. In some cases, as in the cholesteric phase, this favored twist…
The director configuration of disclination lines in nematic liquid crystals in the presence of an external magnetic field is evaluated. Our method is a combination of a polynomial expansion for the director and of further analytical…
Evidence of a special chiral nematic phase is provided using numerical simulation and Onsager theory for systems of hard helical particles. This phase appears at the high density end of the nematic phase, when helices are well aligned, and…
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…
Chiral nematic liquid crystals exhibit both a helical planar ground state with uniform twist and a metastable defect-rich focal conic texture, and can be switched between the two microstructures via application of transient voltage pulses.…
NMR measurements on a selectively deuteriated liquid crystal dimer CB-C9-CB exhibiting two nematic phases show that the molecules in the lower temperature nematic phase, Nx, experience a chiral environment and are ordered about a unique…
The phase-field method has become in recent years the method of choice for simulating microstructural pattern formation during solidification. One of its main advantages is that time-dependent three-dimensional simulations become feasible.…
Based on the present data, the three CKM angles may construct a spherical surface triangle whose area automatically provides a "holonomy" phase. By assuming this geometrical phase to be that in the CKM matrix determined by an unknown hidden…
Molecular chirality leads to a wonderful variety of equilibrium structures, from the simple cholesteric phase to the twist-grain-boundary phases, and it is responsible for interesting and technologically important materials like…
Anisotropic rod-like particles form liquid crystalline phases with varying degrees of orientational and translational order. When confined geometrically, these phases can give rise to topological defects, which can be selected and…
Point-like motile topological defects control the universal dynamics of diverse two-dimensional active nematics ranging from shaken granular rods to cellular monolayers. A comparable understanding in higher dimensions has yet to emerge. We…
Ordered phases resulting from spontaneously broken continuous symmetries are effectively described by sigma models of maps to the coset space of Goldstone modes. A classic problem is to classify the topological sectors of the sigma model.…