Critical elastic coefficient of liquid crystals and hysteresis (Q934615)

The author analyzes the following conjecture formulated by P. G. de Gennes related to the analogies between liquid crystals and superconductors: at smectic-\(C\) to nematic transition, all elastic coefficients diverge. This prediction is analyzed in the present paper by using the Landau-de Gennes model. The analysis developed in this work deals on several quantitative comparisons between the effect of the elastic coefficients to liquid crystals and the magnetic effect to superconductivity. This is mainly based by the introduction of the critical elastic coefficient \(K^c\) which is useful in describing the phase transitions of liquid crystals as the elastic coefficients increase and pass by \(K^c\). The main result established in this paper establishes that in the subcritical case the liquid crystal does not undergo phase transition, while in the supercritical case both phase transition and hysterezis occur.