2010/04/03 by Gareth P. Alexander, Bryan Gin–ge Chen, Bryan Gin-ge Chen +2 · 4 citations
Engineering · Materials Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Materials and Mechanics #Liquid Crystal Research Advancements #Mathematics and Applications #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.104.257802
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 104 (2010) 257802 · 4 pages, 3 included figures
arxiv created 2010/04/03 · openalex publication_date 2010/06/24 · arxiv updated 2010/06/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Focal conic domains are typically the "smoking gun" by which smectic liquid crystalline phases are identified. The geometry of the equally spaced smectic layers is highly generic but, at the same time, difficult to work with. In this Letter we develop an approach to the study of focal sets in smectics which exploits a hidden Poincaré symmetry revealed only by viewing the smectic layers as projections from one-higher dimension. We use this perspective to shed light upon several classic focal conic textures, including the concentric cyclides of Dupin, polygonal textures, and tilt-grain boundaries.