Chevron patterns in an active nematic liquid crystal film in contact with Smectic A

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Calderer, M. Carme, Yao, Lingxing, Zhao, Longhua, Golovaty, Dmitry, Ignés-Mullol, Jordi, Sagués, Francesc
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Calderer, M. Carme
Yao, Lingxing
Zhao, Longhua
Golovaty, Dmitry
Ignés-Mullol, Jordi
Sagués, Francesc
author_facet Calderer, M. Carme
Yao, Lingxing
Zhao, Longhua
Golovaty, Dmitry
Ignés-Mullol, Jordi
Sagués, Francesc
contents We study a new mechanism of active matter confinement of a thin, active nematic sample consisting of microtubules, activated by Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP), placed between a slab of passive liquid crystal, the compound 8CB, and water. The 8CB slab is kept at a temperature below the phase transition value between the nematic and the smectic A phases. The smectic A molecules are horizontally aligned with an applied magnetic field, with their centers of mass arranged on equally spaced layers perpendicular to the field. The contact with the active nematic prompts flow in the smectic slab, along the direction parallel to the layers. This flow direction is transferred back to the active nematic. We set up a model of such contact flow and make predictions on the experimentally observed pattern, from the point of view of asymptotic, linear and nonlinear analyses. We examine such results within the scope of the principle of minimum energy dissipation of the flow. For analytic convenience, we consider the active nematic confined between two symmetric 8CB slabs, and show that the conclusions still hold when replacing the bottom smectic A substrate with water, as in the experimental setting.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_01740
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Chevron patterns in an active nematic liquid crystal film in contact with Smectic A
Calderer, M. Carme
Yao, Lingxing
Zhao, Longhua
Golovaty, Dmitry
Ignés-Mullol, Jordi
Sagués, Francesc
Soft Condensed Matter
Classical Analysis and ODEs
We study a new mechanism of active matter confinement of a thin, active nematic sample consisting of microtubules, activated by Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP), placed between a slab of passive liquid crystal, the compound 8CB, and water. The 8CB slab is kept at a temperature below the phase transition value between the nematic and the smectic A phases. The smectic A molecules are horizontally aligned with an applied magnetic field, with their centers of mass arranged on equally spaced layers perpendicular to the field. The contact with the active nematic prompts flow in the smectic slab, along the direction parallel to the layers. This flow direction is transferred back to the active nematic. We set up a model of such contact flow and make predictions on the experimentally observed pattern, from the point of view of asymptotic, linear and nonlinear analyses. We examine such results within the scope of the principle of minimum energy dissipation of the flow. For analytic convenience, we consider the active nematic confined between two symmetric 8CB slabs, and show that the conclusions still hold when replacing the bottom smectic A substrate with water, as in the experimental setting.
title Chevron patterns in an active nematic liquid crystal film in contact with Smectic A
topic Soft Condensed Matter
Classical Analysis and ODEs
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.01740