Existence and stability of kayaking orbits for nematic liquid crystals in simple shear flow

DOI10.1007/S00205-021-01703-XMaRDI QIDQ2065725zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors David Chillingworth, M. Gregory Forest, Reiner Lauterbach, Claudia Wulff

Publication date 12 January 2022

Published in Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.09746

zbMATH Keywords

\(Q\)-tensor model

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Symmetries, invariants of ordinary differential equations (34C14) Bifurcation theory for ordinary differential equations (34C23) Periodic solutions to ordinary differential equations (34C25) Qualitative investigation and simulation of ordinary differential equation models (34C60) Stability of solutions to ordinary differential equations (34D20) Equivariant dynamical systems (37C81) Liquid crystals (76A15) Statistical mechanics of random media, disordered materials (including liquid crystals and spin glasses) (82D30)

Abstract: We use geometric methods of equivariant dynamical systems to address a long-standing open problem in the theory of nematic liquid crystals, namely a proof of the existence and asymptotic stability of kayaking periodic orbits for which the principal axis of orientation of the molecular field (the director) rotates around the vorticity axis in response to steady shear flow. With a small parameter attached to the symmetric part of the velocity gradient, the problem can be viewed as a symmetry-breaking bifurcation from an orbit of the rotation group~

S O (3)

that contains both logrolling (equilibrium) and tumbling (periodic rotation of the director within the plane of shear) regimes as well as a continuum of kayaking orbits. The results turn out to require expansion to second order in the perturbation parameter.

Review text

This paper concerns the so-called \(Q\)-tensor model \[ \dot{Q}=G(Q)+\omega(WQ-QW)+\beta \mathbf {L} (Q)D,\; Q \in V, \tag{1} \] for unsteady dynamical responses of nematic liquid crystals to steady shear flow. It is an autonomous ODE in the 5-dimensional space \(V\) of symmetric and traceless real \(5\times 5\)-matrices \(Q\). In (1) the vorticity tensor \(W\), the rate-of-strain tensor \(D\) and the rotational coefficient \(\omega\) are fixed, the rate of molecular interaction \(\beta\approx 0\) is the bifurcation parameter, and \(G(Q) \in V\) and \(\mathbf{L}(Q) \in \mathcal{L}(V)\) are given nonlinearities. It is supposed that \(RG(Q)=G(RQ)\) for all \(R \in SO(3)\) and \(Q\in V\) and that there exists \(Q^* \in V\) such that \(G(Q^*)=0\) and \(WQ^*=Q^*W\). Then any element of the group orbit \(\{RQ^*: R \in SO(3)\}\) is a relative equilibrium to (1) with \(\beta=0\). All but one of these relative equilibria represent so-called kayaking regimes, i.e. regimes, for which the nematic director is transverse to the plane of the shear flow and rotates around the vorticity axis. The goal of the paper is to prove that some members of the family of relative equilibria survive (as periodic solutions to (1)) under the symmetry-breaking perturbation \(\beta \mathbf{L}(Q)D\) with small, but non-zero \(\beta\), and to show which of them are stable. There are presented explicit criteria on the coefficients of several models of \(\mathbf{L}(Q)\) (Olmsted-Golbart model, Beris-Edwards model) for existence and stability of those surviving periodic solutions. The authors use tools of general bifurcation theory (implicit function theorem, Lyapunov-Schmidt reduction, principle of reduced stability, Poincaré map) as well as from equivariant bifurcation theory (rotation coordinates, Veronese map, isotopic decomposition).

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