Dimension reduction for the Landau-de Gennes model in planar nematic thin films (Q897166)

This article deals with the Landau-de Gennes model for a nematic liquid crystalline thin film. The authors present the dimensional reduction in the Landau-de Gennes \(Q\)-tensor model from three to two dimensions. A general \(\Gamma\)-convergence result for the sequence of non-dimensional Landau-de Gennes energies is established, when a small parameter \(\varepsilon\), related to the film thickness, goes to zero. This result is obtained for the cases when a surface-energy-minimizing \(Q\)-tensor has the normal to the surface of the film as one of its eigenvectors. The minimizers of the functional representing the \(\Gamma\)-limit are obtained for different parameter regimes. Depending on the relation between the coefficients of the surface and the bulk energy terms, mimimizing \(Q\)-tensors may develop boundary layers.