36th M. Smoluchowski Symposium on Statistical Physics: Soft Matter, Information Processing and Nonequilibrium Fluctuations

Session

Session 11

Sep 27, 2023, 3:00 PM

Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Applied Computer Science; Jagiellonian University

81. Some open questions in the elasticity of nematic liquid crystals: insights from microscopic theory

Prof. Alberta Ferrarini (University of Padova, Italy)

9/27/23, 3:00 PM

Invited Talk

The elastic behaviour of nematic liquid crystals is commonly interpreted on the basis of the Oseen-Frank free energy [1,2], in which the cost for distortions from the uniform alignment is decomposed into contributions corresponding to three modes – splay, twist, and bend - built from the first-order derivatives of the position dependent director. Typical low molecular mass thermotropic systems...

72. Nematic ordering in active systems

Holger Stark

9/27/23, 3:40 PM

Invited Talk

Active systems refer to collections of entities that consume energy and thereby move forward showing emergent collective dynamics. In the macroscopic world this could be fish schools or flocks of birds. In the microscopic world, which we address here, the entities often have the shape of rods like bacteria or are flexible filaments such as microtubules, which are biopolymers found within...

67. A self-consistent mean field model for hard ellipsoids

Peter Palffy-Muhoray (Dept of Mathematical Sciences and Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute Kent State University)

9/27/23, 4:20 PM

Regular Talk

Assemblies of hard ellipsoidal particles form orientationally ordered phases with increasing number density. A simple self-consistent mean field model is proposed to study the transition from the isotropic to the nematic phase. The simplicity of the model gives ready access to the order parameter, free energy and pressure, in good agreement with simulations. The model may be useful to describe...