Uniaxial symmetry in nematic liquid crystals

DOI10.1016/J.ANIHPC.2014.05.006zbMATH Open1345.49002arXiv1402.1058OpenAlexW2070841855MaRDI QIDQ892703FDOQ892703

Authors: Xavier Lamy 

Publication date: 11 November 2015

Published in: Annales de l'Institut Henri Poincaré. Analyse Non Linéaire (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Within the Landau-de Gennes theory of liquid crystals, we study theoretically the equilibrium configurations with uniaxial symmetry. We show that the uniaxial symmetry constraint is very restrictive and can in general not be satisfied, except in very symmetric situations. For one- and two-dimensional configurations, we characterize completely the uniaxial equilibria: they must have constant director. In the three dimensional case we focus on the model problem of a spherical droplet with radial anchoring, and show that any uniaxial equilibrium must be spherically symmetric. It was known before that uniaxiality can sometimes be broken by energy minimizers. Our results shed a new light on this phenomenon: we prove here that in one or two dimensions uniaxial symmetry is always broken, unless the director is constant. Moreover, our results concern all equilibrium configurations, and not merely energy minimizers.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1402.1058

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zbMATH Keywords

nematic liquid crystalsradial symmetryequilibrium configurationsenergy minimizersbiaxial escapeuniaxial symmetry

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Statistical mechanics of random media, disordered materials (including liquid crystals and spin glasses) (82D30) Existence theories for free problems in two or more independent variables (49J10)

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Cited In (14)

• Symmetry of uniaxial global Landau-de Gennes minimizers in the theory of nematic liquid crystals
• Modelling and computation of liquid crystals
• Remarks on uniaxial solutions in the Landau-de Gennes theory
• Landau-de Gennes corrections to the Oseen-Frank theory of nematic liquid crystals
• Torus-like solutions for the Landau-De Gennes model
• Biaxiality in the asymptotic analysis of a 2D Landau−de Gennes model for liquid crystals
• Torus-like solutions for the Landau-de Gennes model. I: The Lyuksyutov regime
• Symmetry in nonlinear PDEs: some open problems
• Orientational balances for nematic liquid crystals
• Symmetry and multiplicity of solutions in a two-dimensional Landau-de Gennes model for liquid crystals
• Accelerated Gradient Descent Methods for the Uniaxially Constrained Landau-de Gennes Model
• Biaxial escape in nematics at low temperature
• The transmission of symmetry in liquid crystals
• On equilibrium configurations of nematic liquid crystals droplet with anisotropic elastic energy

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