Variational principles for the interaction of liquid crystals and electric fields in the Oseen--Frank model

Abstract

We develop a rigorous variational framework for uniaxial nematic liquid crystals interacting with an external electric field in the one-constant Oseen--Frank approximation. Equilibrium configurations are governed by a nonlocal, nonlinear energy with a challenging min-max saddle-point structure. Our first main result reformulates this problem as a pure double-minimization problem. Using convex duality and the Hodge decomposition, we replace the scalar electrostatic potential with a vector potential, yielding a closed-form dual functional with a unique minimizer. This direct energy-minimization principle is advantageous for both theoretical analysis and numerical simulation. Our second result rigorously quantifies the decoupling of the electrostatic back-reaction in the limit of small dielectric anisotropy. We establish a uniform quadratic energy bound between the exact nonlocal energy and its standard local approximation, formally justifying the widespread physics heuristic of neglecting induced depolarization fields. Finally, under a strict coercivity condition, we combine $\Gamma$-convergence, uniform Sobolev regularity, and a perturbative coercivity transfer to prove that physical minimizers converge to limiting harmonic maps at an optimal, quantitative linear rate.