Orientability and asymptotic convergence of \(Q\)-tensor flow of biaxial nematic liquid crystals (Q2153935)

The authors study the orientability and asymptotic convergence of the \(Q\)-tensor flow for biaxial nematic liquid crystals. For the orientability, the authors prove that if \(Q\in W^{1,p}(\Omega,\mathcal{N})\) (\(p\geq 2\)), then there is \((n,m)\in \mathcal{M}\) with \(n,m \in W^{1,p}(\Omega)\), such that \(Q = r (n\times n - m\times m)\), where, unlike \(\mathbb{S}^2\), the set \(\mathcal{M}\) is not simply connected, thus extending the result for the uniaxial nematics case [\textit{J. M. Ball} and \textit{A. Zarnescu}, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 202, No. 2, 493--535 (2011; Zbl 1263.76010)] to the maximal biaxial nematics case. For the asymptotic convergence as \(\epsilon\to 0\) of the approximate solutions \(Q_\epsilon\) of the \(Q\)-tensor flow in \(\mathbb{R}^3\), it is shown that the limiting direction map \((n,m)\) satisfies a gradient flow that is different from the heat flow of harmonic map taking values into \(\mathbb{S}^2\) or \(\mathcal{M}\); and a partial regularity of this gradient flow is also derived, thus extending the results in [loc. cit.] and in [\textit{M. Wang} et al., Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 225, No. 2, 663--683 (2017; Zbl 1372.76012)] to the maximal biaxial nematic liquid crystals.