Related papers: Exact and approximate solutions for elastic intera…
Anisotropic fluids, such as nematic liquid crystals, can form non-spherical equilibrium shapes known as tactoids. Predicting the shape of these structures as a function of material parameters is challenging and paradigmatic of a broader…
With quenched disorder, we introduce two-dimensional active nematics suspended in an incompressible fluid. We write the coarse-grained hydrodynamic equations of motion for slow variables, viz. density, orientation and flow fields. The…
The motion of flexible fibers through structured fluidic environments is ubiquitous in nature and industrial applications. Most often, their dynamics results from the complex interplay between internal elastic stresses, contact forces and…
The effective interaction between spherical colloids in nematic liquid crystals is investigated in the framework of the Landau-de Gennes theory. The colloids differ through their interaction with the nematic. While both particles induce…
To describe many-particle systems suspended in incompressible low-Reynolds-number fluids, effective hydrodynamic interactions can be introduced. Here, we consider particles embedded in elastic media. The effective elastic interactions…
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…
We determine the capillary attraction and equilibrium configurations of particles trapped at a liquid-fluid interface due to the pinning of their contact-line. We calculate analytically the asymptotic interaction energy between two…
In this paper, the two-dimensional pure bending of a hyperelastic substrate coated by a nematic liquid crystal elastomer (abbreviated as NLCE) is studied within the framework of nonlinear elasticity. The governing system, arising from the…
A theoretical analysis of homeotropic alignment induced by nanoparticles (NPs) in a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) sample cell is presented. It is found that such alignment on the surface of a NP causes a change in the orientation of the…
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…
The statistical-mechanical study of the equilibrium properties of fluids, starting from the knowledge of the interparticle interaction potential, is essential to understand the role that microscopic interaction between individual particles…
Coupling between flow and orientation is a central issue in understanding the collective dynamics of active biofilaments and cells. Active stresses generated by motor activity destroy (quasi-)long-range orientational order and induce…
Solitons in liquid crystals are spatially localised stable configuration of the liquid crystal orientational order parameter that exhibit emergent particle-like properties such as mutual interaction, translational motion and reconfigurable…
Motivated by problems arising in tear film dynamics, we present a model for the extensional flow of thin sheets of nematic liquid crystal. The rod-like molecules of these substances impart an elastic contribution to its response. We rescale…
We develop a formal analogy between configurational stresses in two distinct physical systems, and study the flows that they induce when the configurations of interest include topological de- fects. The two systems in question are…
It has been shown that an anisotropic liquid crystalline (LC) environment can be used to guide the self-propulsion dynamics of dispersed microswimmers, such as bacteria. This type of composite system is named "living nematic" (LN). In the…
Nematic liquid crystals are well modeled as a fluid of rigid rods. Starting from this model, we use a Poisson-bracket formalism to derive the equations governing the dynamics of nematic liquid crystals. We treat the spin angular momentum…
The phase-field-crystal model is used to access the structure and thermodynamics of interfaces between two coexisting liquid crystalline phases in two spatial dimensions. Depending on the model parameters there is a variety of possible…
The interaction between two disks immersed in a 2D nematic is investigated (i) analitically using the tensor order parameter formalism for the nematic configuration around isolated disks and (ii) numerically using finite element methods…
Theoretical description of the elastic interaction between colloidal particles in NLC with incorporation of the higher order elastic terms beyond the limit of dipole and qudrupole interactions is proposed. The expression for the elastic…