Novel Universality Classes in Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals

Abstract

Abstract Starting from a Langevin formulation of a thermally perturbed nonlinear elastic model of the ferroelectric smectic-C* (SmC*) liquid crystals in the presence of an electric field, this article characterizes the hitherto unexplored dynamical phase transition from a thermo-electrically forced ferroelectric SmC* phase to a chiral nematic liquid crystalline phase and vice versa. The theoretical analysis is based on a combination of dynamic renormalization (DRG) and numerical simulation of the emergent model. While the DRG architecture predicts a generic transition to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class at dynamic equilibrium, in agreement with recent experiments, the numerical simulations of the model show simultaneous existence of two phases, one a subdiffusive (SD) phase characterized by a dynamical exponent value of 1, and the other a KPZ phase, characterized by a dynamical exponent value of 1.5. The SD phase flows over to the KPZ phase with increased external forcing, offering a new universality paradigm, hitherto unexplored in the context of ferroelectric liquid crystals.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molliq.2017.11.018
Dataset DOI: https://doi.org/10.17036/22293068-b6e8-498a-b9db-5f93af0813e2
Divisions: College of Engineering & Physical Sciences > Systems analytics research institute (SARI)
Additional Information: © 2017, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Uncontrolled Keywords: Ferroelectric liquid crystals,Kosterlitz-Thouless transition,renormalization group theory; ,Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation
Publication ISSN: 1873-3166
Last Modified: 08 Jan 2024 08:35
Date Deposited: 13 Nov 2017 14:40
Full Text Link: https://arxiv.o ... /1705.08705.pdf
Related URLs: https://www.sci ... 16773221733773X (Publisher URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2018-01-01
Published Online Date: 2017-11-08
Accepted Date: 2017-11-02
Authors: Chattopadhyay, Amit K (ORCID Profile 0000-0001-5499-6008)
Mukherjee, Prabir K.

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