2008/10/08 by S Joubaud, Sylvain Joubaud, G Huillard +5
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Computer Science · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Lipid Membrane Structure and Behavior #Liquid Crystal Research Advancements #Nonlinear Dynamics and Pattern Formation #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1742-5468/2009/01/p01033
to be published in JSTAT: theory and experiments
arxiv created 2008/10/08 · openalex publication_date 2009/01/06 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
The orientation fluctuations of the director of a liquid crystal are measured, using a sensitive polarization interferometer, close to the Fréedericksz transition, which is a second-order transition driven by an electric field. Using mean field theory, we define the work injected into the system by a change of the electric field and we calibrate it using the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. We show that the work fluctuations satisfy the transient fluctuation theorem. An analytical justification of this result is given. The open problems for the out-of-equilibrium case are then discussed.