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On the Dynamics of the Weak Fréedericksz Transition for Nematic Liquid Crystals

Part of: Foundations, constitutive equations, rheology Dynamical problems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2016

Peder Aursand ,
Gaetano Napoli  and
Johanna Ridder
Peder Aursand*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematical Sciences, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway
Gaetano Napoli*
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Innovazione, Università del Salento, via per Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Johanna Ridder*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, University of Oslo, P.O.Box 1053, Blindern, 0316 Oslo, Norway
*
*Corresponding author. Email addresses:peder.aursand@math.ntnu.no (P. Aursand), gaetano.napoli@unisalento.it (G. Napoli), johanrid@math.uio.no (J. Ridder)
*Corresponding author. Email addresses:peder.aursand@math.ntnu.no (P. Aursand), gaetano.napoli@unisalento.it (G. Napoli), johanrid@math.uio.no (J. Ridder)
*Corresponding author. Email addresses:peder.aursand@math.ntnu.no (P. Aursand), gaetano.napoli@unisalento.it (G. Napoli), johanrid@math.uio.no (J. Ridder)
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Abstract

We propose an implicit finite-difference method to study the time evolution of the director field of a nematic liquid crystal under the influence of an electric field with weak anchoring at the boundary. The scheme allows us to study the dynamics of transitions between different director equilibrium states under varying electric field and anchoring strength. In particular, we are able to simulate the transition to excited states of odd parity, which have previously been observed in experiments, but so far only analyzed in the static case.

Keywords

Nematic liquid crystalsFréedericksz transitionweak anchoring

MSC classification

Secondary: 76A15: Liquid crystals 74H15: Numerical approximation of solutions 74H60: Dynamical bifurcation
Type
Research Article
Information
Communications in Computational Physics , Volume 20 , Issue 5 , November 2016 , pp. 1359 - 1380
Copyright
Copyright © Global-Science Press 2016 

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References

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