Topological properties of ordinary nematics in 3-space (Q1107172)

This paper consists of two parts. The first part, which is concerned with the nematic liquid crystal, is without details and consists of a description of the defect set \(\Delta\) of the nematic liquid crystal as the disjoint union of r knots \(\Delta_ i\) and s points \(P_ j\) in \(R^ 3\), followed by the definition of regular behaviour of the nematic liquid crystal outside of the defect set \(\Delta\) so as to make it correspondent to the homotopy class of a mapping from the complement in \(R^ 3\) of a tubular neighbourhood of \(\Delta\) into the projective space \(P^ 2\) extending the given mapping on the boundary of the tubular neighbourhood describing the behaviour around the defect, which splits into mappings \(v_ i\) of r tori and \(u_ j\) of s spheres into \(P^ 2\) satisfying a non triviality condition, as \(\Delta\) is a disjoint union of \(\Delta_ i\) and \(P_ j\). Then the author formulates the problem as follows: given a defect \(\Delta\), investigate the condition for the mappings \(v_ i\) and \(u_ j\) to be extendable to a mapping of the complement of the defect into \(P^ 2\), that is, by the regular nematic crystal. The second part of the paper consists therefore of the classification of the mappings \(v_ i\) and \(u_ j\) by some invariants \(v_ i\) in \(Z_ 4\) and \(u_ j\) in the natural numbers \({\mathbb{N}}\) to deduce the main theorem: The mapping of the boundary of the tubular neighbourhood of \(\Delta\) into \(P^ 2\) is extendable to a mapping of the complement of \(\Delta\) if and only if the invariants \((v_ 1,\cdot \cdot \cdot,v_ r,\cdot \cdot \cdot,u_ s)\) satisfy (1) \(v_ i\equiv \sum_{j\neq i}\Delta_ i\cdot \Delta_ j\) mod 2 for the linking number \(\Delta_ i\cdot \Delta_ j\) of the knots \(\Delta_ i\) and \(\Delta_ j\), (2) \(q_ 1+...+q_ r\equiv u_ 1+...+u_ s \bmod 2\) for the \(q_ i\) defined by \(q_ i=1/2(v_ i-\sum_{j\neq i}\Delta_ i\cdot \Delta_ j) \bmod 2\)