Related papers: Coupling topological defect phase to extrinsic cur…
We study the equilibrium configuration of a nematic liquid crystal bounded by a rough surface. The wrinkling of the surface induces a partial melting in the degree of orientation. This softened region penetrates the bulk up to a length…
Colloidal inclusions in nematic fluids induce topological defects that govern their dynamics. These defects create well-understood rheological behavior in passive nematics, but the interplay between colloid-associated defects and…
We report appearance of non-trivial zero energy corner modes in the form of topological defects (trimers) in a carefully designed 2D crystalline topological insulator. The proposed scenario is developed via an unconventional stacking of 1D…
In this work, we investigate the topological properties of knotted defects in smectic liquid crystals. Our story begins with screw dislocations, whose radial surface structure can be smoothly accommodated on $S^3$ for fibred knots by using…
We study backscattering of electrons and conductance suppression in a helical edge channel in two-dimensional topological insulators with broken axial spin symmetry in the presence of nonmagnetic point defects that create bound states. In…
A first-order phase transition is found in two types of intrinsic curvature models defined on dynamically triangulated surfaces of disk topology. The intrinsic curvature energy is included in the Hamiltonian. The smooth phase is separated…
We stabilize nematic droplets with handles against surface-tension-driven instabilities using a yield-stress material as outer fluid and study the complex nematic textures and defect structures that result from the competition between…
We study the influence of topology on the quench dynamics of a system driven across a quantum critical point. We show how the appearance of certain edge states, which fully characterise the topology of the system, dramatically modifies the…
By using topological current theory, we study the inner topological structure of disclinations during the melting of two-dimensional systems. From two-dimensional elasticity theory, it is found topological currents for topological defects…
Epithelial monolayers are a central building block of complex organisms. Topological defects have emerged as important elements for single cell behavior in flat epithelia. Here we theoretically study such defects in a three-dimensional…
Engineering synthetic materials that mimic the remarkable complexity of living organisms is a fundamental challenge in science and technology. We study the spatiotemporal patterns that emerge when an active nematicfilm of microtubules and…
Symmetries play an essential role in identifying and characterizing topological states of matter. Here, we classify topologically two-dimensional (2D) insulators and semimetals with vanishing spin-orbit coupling using time-reversal…
Adopting a spintronics-inspired approach, we study the reciprocal coupling between ionic charge currents and nematic texture dynamics in a uniaxial nematic electrolyte. Assuming quenched fluid dynamics, we develop equations of motion…
We study the mechanical buckling of a two dimensional membrane coated with a thin layer of superfluid. It is seen that a singularity (vortex or anti-vortex defect) in the phase of the quantum order parameter, distorts the membrane metric…
Nematic liquid crystals possess three different phases: isotropic, uniaxial, and biaxial. The ground state of most nematics is either isotropic or uniaxial, depending on the external temperature. Nevertheless, biaxial domains have been…
Recent experiments on vesicles formed from block copolymers with liquid-crystalline side-chains reveal a rich variety of vesicle morphologies. The additional internal order ("structure") developed by these self-assembled block copolymer…
Quantized responses are important tools for understanding and characterizing the universal features of topological phases of matter. In this work, we consider a class of topological crystalline insulators in $3$D with $C_n$ lattice rotation…
We propose that the dissipative dynamics of topological defects in a spiral state is responsible for the transport properties in the spin-glass phase of cuprates. Using the collective-coordinate method, we show that topological defects are…
Nematic twist--bend is the fifth nematic phase recognized in nature. This phase exhibits spiral orientational order, thus it is a chiral structure and it can be stabilized in systems composed of achiral molecules. The microscopic origin of…
We describe a numerical investigation of a continuum model of an active nematic, concentrating on the regime of active turbulence. Results are presented for the effect of three parameters, activity, elastic constant and rotational diffusion…