2011/10/25 by E. F. Henriques, Henriques, E. F., S. R. Salinas +1
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #FOS: Physical sciences #Material Dynamics and Properties #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1110.5616
21 pages, 3 figures
arxiv created 2011/10/25 · openalex publication_date 2011/10/25 · arxiv updated 2011/10/26 · openalex created_date 2019/06/27 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We analyze the global phase diagram of a Maier-Saupe lattice model with the inclusion of disorder degrees of freedom to mimic a mixture of oblate and prolate molecules (discs and cylinders). In the neighborhood of a Landau multicritical point, solutions of the statistical problem can be written as a Landau-de Gennes expansion for the free energy. If the disorder degrees of freedom are quenched, we confirm the existence of a biaxial nematic strucure. If orientational and disorder degrees of freedom are allowed to thermalize, this biaxial solution becomes thermodynamically unstable. Also, we use a two-temperature formalism to mimic the presence of two distinct relaxation times, and show that a slight departure from complete thermalization is enough to stabilize a biaxial nematic phase.