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arXiv · cond-mat/0212206

Thermal fluctuations and anomalous elasticity of homogeneous nematic elastomers

Xiangjun Xing·Leo Radzihovsky
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Abstract

We present a unified formulation of a rotationally invariant nonlinear elasticity for a variety of spontaneously anisotropic phases, and use it to study thermal fluctuations in nematic elastomers and spontaneously anisotropic gels. We find that in a thermodynamic limit homogeneous nematic elastomers are universally incompressible, are characterized by a universal ratio of shear moduli, and exhibit an anomalous elasticity controlled by a nontrivial low temperature fixed point perturbative in D=3-epsilon dimensions. In three dimensions, we make predictions that are asymptotically exact.

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Xiangjun Xing, Leo Radzihovsky. 2002-12-10. Thermal fluctuations and anomalous elasticity of homogeneous nematic elastomers. https://doi.org/10.1209/epl%2Fi2003-00300-9

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