2003/11/21 by Kostya Shundyak, René van Roij · 3 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Liquid Crystal Research Advancements #Material Dynamics and Properties #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.69.041703
published as Physical Review E 69, 041703 (2004) · 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to PRE
arxiv created 2003/11/21 · openalex publication_date 2004/04/26 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We explore models of hard-rod fluids with a finite number of allowed orientations, and construct their bulk phase diagrams within Onsager's second virial theory. For a one-component fluid, we show that the discretization of the orientations leads to the existence of an artificial (almost) perfectly aligned nematic phase, which coexists with the (physical) nematic phase if the number of orientations is sufficiently large, or with the isotropic phase if the number of orientations is small. Its appearance correlates with the accuracy of sampling the nematic orientation distribution within its typical opening angle. For a binary mixture this artificial phase also exists, and a much larger number of orientations is required to shift it to such high densities that it does not interfere with the physical part of the phase diagram.