Related papers: The Geometry of the Cholesteric Phase
The intrinsic property of proteins to form structural motifs such as alpha-helices and beta-sheets leads to a complex phase behavior in which proteins can assemble into various types of aggregates including crystals, liquidlike phases of…
In the hexagonal columnar phase of chiral polymers a bias towards cholesteric twist competes with braiding along an average direction. When the chirality is strong, screw dislocations proliferate, leading to either a tilt grain boundary…
We present a novel, self-consistent and robust theoretical model to investigate elastic interactions between topological defects in liquid crystal shells. Accounting for the non-concentric nature of the shell in a simple manner, we are able…
Given a distribution of defects on a structured surface, such as those represented by 2-dimensional crystalline materials, liquid crystalline surfaces, and thin sandwiched shells, what is the resulting stress field and the deformed shape?…
Statistically distinguishing between phase-coherent and noncoherent chaotic dynamics from time series is a contemporary problem in nonlinear sciences. In this work, we propose different measures based on recurrence properties of recorded…
Domains of condensed-phase monolayers of chiral molecules exhibit a variety of interesting nonequilibrium structures when formed via pressurization. To model these domain patterns, we add a complex field describing the tilt degree of…
We consider the hydrodynamics for the biaxial nematic phase characterized by a field of orthonormal frame, which can be derived from a molecular-theory-based tensor model. In dimension two and three, we establish the local well-posedness…
We show that inversion-asymmetric tethered membranes exhibit a new double-spiral phase with long range orientational order not present in symmetric membranes. We calculate the universal algebraic spiral shapes of these membranes in this…
This paper describes the foundations of a differential geometry of a quaternionic curves. The Frenet-Serret equations and the evolutes and evolvents of a particular quaternionic curve are accordingly determined. This new formulation takes…
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,…
Motivated by experiments on colloidal membranes composed of chiral rod-like viruses, we use Monte Carlo methods to determine the phase diagram for the liquid crystalline order of the rods and the membrane shape. We generalize the…
Using a microscopic model of interacting polar biofilaments and motor proteins, we characterize the phase diagram of both homogeneous and inhomogeneous states in terms of experimental parameters. The polarity of motor clusters is key in…
A nematic membrane is a sheet with embedded orientational order, which can occur in biological cells, liquid crystal films, manufactured materials, and other soft matter systems. By formulating the free energy of nematic films using tensor…
Using fundamental measure density functional theory we investigate paranematic-nematic and nematic-nematic phase coexistence in binary mixtures of circular platelets with vanishing thicknesses. An external magnetic field induces uniaxial…
What kind of one-dimensional modulated nematic structures (ODMNS) can form nonchiral and chiral bent-core and dimeric materials? Here, using Landau-deGennes theory of nematics, extended to account for molecular steric polarization, we study…
Three-dimensional theories with cubic symmetry are studied using the machinery of the numerical conformal bootstrap. Crossing symmetry and unitarity are imposed on a set of mixed correlators, and various aspects of the parameter space are…
A phase field model for dealing with shape instabilities in fluid membrane vesicles is presented. This model takes into account the Canham-Helfrich bending energy with spontaneous curvature. A dynamic equation for the phase-field is also…
Analytical calculations of the dynamics of a curved domain wall in a nematic liquid crystal are performed. The core of the wall is assumed to form a cylinder, whose axis coincides with the direction of an external magnetic field. The…
We explicitly determine the symplectic structure on the phase space of Chern-Simons theory with gauge group $G\ltimes g^*$ on a three-manifold of topology $R \times S$, where $S$ is a surface of genus $g$ with $n+1$ punctures. At each…
"Necks" are features of lipid membranes characterized by an uniquley large curvature, functioning as bridges between different compartments. These features are ubiquitous in the life-cycle of the cell and instrumental in processes such as…