2007/12/31 by Homin Shin, Mark J. Bowick, Xiangjun Xing · 147 citations
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Materials and Mechanics #Anisotropy #Condensed matter physics #Degenerate energy levels #Geometry #Lattice (music) #Liquid Crystal Research Advancements #Liquid crystal #Monte Carlo method #Optics #Physics #Pickering emulsions and particle stabilization #Quantum mechanics #Tangent #Topological defect #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.101.037802
published in Physical Review Letters 101(3), 037802 (American Physical Society) · 4 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2008/06/27 · openalex publication_date 2008/07/17 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We study the organization of topological defects in a system of nematogens confined to the two-dimensional sphere (S2). We first perform Monte Carlo simulations of a fluid system of hard rods (spherocylinders) living in the tangent plane of S2. The sphere is adiabatically compressed until we reach a jammed nematic state with maximum packing density. The nematic state exhibits four +1/2 disclinations arrayed on a great circle. This arises from the high elastic anisotropy of the system in which splay (K1) is far softer than bending (K3). We also introduce and study a lattice nematic model on S2 with tunable elastic constants and map out the preferred defect locations as a function of elastic anisotropy. We find a one-parameter family of degenerate ground states in the extreme splay-dominated limit K3/K1-->infinity. Thus the global defect geometry is controllable by tuning the relative splay to bend modulus.