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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Dalby, James, Majumdar, Apala
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.16841
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author Dalby, James
Majumdar, Apala
author_facet Dalby, James
Majumdar, Apala
contents We investigate solution landscapes for ferronematics i.e., a dilute suspension of magnetic nano-particles in a nematic liquid crystal host, in a reduced one-dimensional setting relevant for microfluidic problems. Solution landscapes show how critical points of an energy functional connect to one another on the energy landscape, hence revealing potential mechanism by which multistable systems may switch between different stable states. By varying model parameters, we show that increasing domain size and increasing nemato-magnetic coupling have the same impact on the solution landscape, in that both result in new emergent solutions. Hence, this presents multiple avenues for experimental realisation of multistable ferronematic systems with desired properties. We also show the prevalence, and therefore importance, of ferronematic polydomains, which present themselves as what we call order reconstruction (OR) solutions. These ferronematic OR solutions possess a great deal of complexity in terms of the location and multiplicity of domain walls, and also play a key role in the connectivity of stable states for the solution landscapes considered.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2309_16841
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Solution landscapes of ferronematics in microfluidic channels
Dalby, James
Majumdar, Apala
Soft Condensed Matter
We investigate solution landscapes for ferronematics i.e., a dilute suspension of magnetic nano-particles in a nematic liquid crystal host, in a reduced one-dimensional setting relevant for microfluidic problems. Solution landscapes show how critical points of an energy functional connect to one another on the energy landscape, hence revealing potential mechanism by which multistable systems may switch between different stable states. By varying model parameters, we show that increasing domain size and increasing nemato-magnetic coupling have the same impact on the solution landscape, in that both result in new emergent solutions. Hence, this presents multiple avenues for experimental realisation of multistable ferronematic systems with desired properties. We also show the prevalence, and therefore importance, of ferronematic polydomains, which present themselves as what we call order reconstruction (OR) solutions. These ferronematic OR solutions possess a great deal of complexity in terms of the location and multiplicity of domain walls, and also play a key role in the connectivity of stable states for the solution landscapes considered.
title Solution landscapes of ferronematics in microfluidic channels
topic Soft Condensed Matter
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.16841