Related papers: Variational modelling of nematic elastomer foundat…
Anti-plane shear deformations of a hexagonal quasi-crystal with multiple screw dislocations are considered. Using a variational formulation, the elastic equilibrium is characterized via limit of minimizers of a core-regularized energy…
Within the framework of the generalized Landau-de Gennes theory, we identify a $Q$-tensor-based energy that reduces to the four-constant Oseen-Frank energy when it is considered over orientable uniaxial nematic states. Although the commonly…
We consider a heterogeneous elastic structure which is stratified in some direction. We derive the limit problem under the assumption that the Lam\'e coefficients and their inverses weakly* converge to Radon measures. Our method applies…
In the limit of vanishing lattice spacing we provide a rigorous variational coarse-graining result for a next-to-nearest neighbor lattice model of a simple crystal. We show that the $\Gamma$-limit of suitable scaled versions of the model…
I put forward a continuum theory for active nematic gels, defined as fluids or suspensions of orientable rodlike objects endowed with active dynamics, that is based on symmetry arguments and compatibility with thermodynamics. The starting…
We design a finite element method (FEM) for a membrane model of liquid crystal polymer networks (LCNs). This model consists of a minimization problem of a non-convex stretching energy. We discuss properties of this energy functional such as…
We perform exact Statistical Mechanics calculations for a system of elongated objects (hard needles) that are restricted to translate along a line and rotate within a plane, and that interact via both excluded-volume steric repulsion and…
Elastic models of the glass transition relate the relaxation dynamics and the elastic properties of structural glasses. They are based on the assumption that the relaxation dynamics occurs through activated events in the energy landscape…
We propose a model for nonlinearly elastic membranes undergoing finite deformations while confined to a regular frictionless surface in $\mathbb{R}^3$. This is a physically correct model of the analogy sometimes given to motivate harmonic…
We develop an effective two-dimensional coarse-grained description for the coupled system of a planar fluid membrane anchored to a thin layer of polar ordered active fluid below. The macroscopic orientation of the active fluid layer is…
Nonsingular disclination dynamics in a uniaxial nematic liquid crystal is modeled within a mathematical framework where the kinematics is a direct extension of the classical way of identifying these line defects with singularities of a unit…
We consider the minimization of integral functionals in one dimension and their approximation by $r$-adaptive finite elements. Including the grid of the FEM approximation as a variable in the minimization, we are able to show that the…
We study a class of Landau-de Gennes energy functionals in the asymptotic regime of small elastic constant $L>0$. We revisit and sharpen the results in [18] on the convergence to the limit Oseen-Frank functional. We examine how the…
We develop a novel finite element method for a phase field model of nematic liquid crystal droplets. The continuous model considers a free energy comprised of three components: the Ericksen's energy for liquid crystals, the Cahn-Hilliard…
We study thermally activated dynamics using functional renormalization within the field theory of randomly pinned elastic systems, a prototype for glasses. It appears through an essentially non-perturbative boundary layer in the running…
We study the phase behavior of a nematic liquid crystal confined between a flat substrate with strong anchoring and a patterned substrate whose structure and local anchoring strength we vary. By first evaluating an effective surface free…
We study a modified Landau-de Gennes model for nematic liquid crystals, where the elastic term is assumed to be of subquadratic growth in the gradient. We analyze the behaviour of global minimizers in two- and three-dimensional domains,…
In this paper we study a gradient flow generated by the Landau-de Gennes free energy that describes nematic liquid crystal configurations in the space of $Q$-tensors. This free energy density functional is composed of three quadratic terms…
In a recent publication we established an analogy between the free energy of a hard sphere system and the energy of an elastic network [1]. This result enables one to study the free energy landscape of hard spheres, in particular to define…
Uniaxial nematic liquid crystals are modelled in the Oseen-Frank theory through a unit vector field $n$. This theory has the apparent drawback that it does not respect the head-to-tail symmetry in which $n$ should be equivalent to -$n$.…