1999/06/28 by Jeffrey L. Billeter, Alexander M. Smondyrev, G. B. Loriot +2 · 1 citation
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Computer Science · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Liquid Crystal Research Advancements #Nonlinear Dynamics and Pattern Formation #Plant and animal studies #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.60.6831
published as Phys. Rev. E 60, 6831 (1999) · 18 pages, 16 figures, animations available at http://www.physics.brown.edu/Users/faculty/pelcovits/lc/coarsening.html
arxiv created 1999/06/28 · openalex publication_date 1999/12/01 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Phase-ordering dynamics in nematic liquid crystals has been the subject of much active investigation in recent years in theory, experiments, and simulations. With a rapid quench from the isotropic to nematic phase, a large number of topological defects are formed and dominate the subsequent equilibration process. Here we present the results of a molecular dynamics simulation of the Gay-Berne model of liquid crystals after such a quench in a system with 65,536 molecules. Twist disclination lines as well as type-1 lines and monopoles were observed. Evidence of dynamical scaling was found in the behavior of the spatial correlation function and the density of disclination lines. However, the behavior of the structure factor provides a more sensitive measure of scaling, and we observed a crossover from a defect dominated regime at small values of the wave vector to a thermal fluctuation dominated regime at large wave vector.