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Coarsening Dynamics of Biaxial Nematic Liquid Crystals

N. V. Priezjev·Robert A. Pelcovits
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Abstract

We study the coarsening dynamics of two and three dimensional biaxial nematic liquid crystals, using Langevin dynamics. Unlike previous work, we use a model with no a priori relationship among the three elastic constants associated with director deformations. We find a rich variety of coarsening behavior, including the simulataneous decay of nearly equal populations of the three classes of half-integer disclination lines. The behavior we observed can be understood on the basis of the relative values of the elastic constants and the resulting decay channels of the defects.

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N. V. Priezjev, Robert A. Pelcovits. 2002-02-14. Coarsening Dynamics of Biaxial Nematic Liquid Crystals. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.66.051705

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