A diffuse-interface Landau-de Gennes model for free-boundary problems in the theory of nematic liquid crystals

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Wu, Dawei, Shi, Baoming, Han, Yucen, Zhang, Pingwen, Majumdar, Apala, Zhang, Lei
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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_version_ 1866918144543555584
author Wu, Dawei
Shi, Baoming
Han, Yucen
Zhang, Pingwen
Majumdar, Apala
Zhang, Lei
author_facet Wu, Dawei
Shi, Baoming
Han, Yucen
Zhang, Pingwen
Majumdar, Apala
Zhang, Lei
contents We introduce a diffuse-interface Landau-de Gennes free energy for nematic liquid crystals (NLC) systems, with free boundaries, in three dimensions submerged in isotropic liquid, and a phase field is introduced to model the deformable interface. The energy consists of the original Landau-de Gennes free energy, three penalty terms and a volume constraint. We prove the existence and regularity of minimizers for the diffuse-interface energy functional. We also prove a uniform maximum principle of the minimizer under appropriate assumptions, together with a uniqueness result for small domains. Then, we establish a sharp-interface limit where minimizers of the diffuse-interface energy converge to a minimizer of a sharp-interface energy using methods from $Γ$-convergence. Finally, we conduct numerical experiments with the diffuse-interface model and the findings are compared with existing works.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_21437
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A diffuse-interface Landau-de Gennes model for free-boundary problems in the theory of nematic liquid crystals
Wu, Dawei
Shi, Baoming
Han, Yucen
Zhang, Pingwen
Majumdar, Apala
Zhang, Lei
Analysis of PDEs
76A15, 49J27, 49K20, 35B50, 49J45, 35F30
We introduce a diffuse-interface Landau-de Gennes free energy for nematic liquid crystals (NLC) systems, with free boundaries, in three dimensions submerged in isotropic liquid, and a phase field is introduced to model the deformable interface. The energy consists of the original Landau-de Gennes free energy, three penalty terms and a volume constraint. We prove the existence and regularity of minimizers for the diffuse-interface energy functional. We also prove a uniform maximum principle of the minimizer under appropriate assumptions, together with a uniqueness result for small domains. Then, we establish a sharp-interface limit where minimizers of the diffuse-interface energy converge to a minimizer of a sharp-interface energy using methods from $Γ$-convergence. Finally, we conduct numerical experiments with the diffuse-interface model and the findings are compared with existing works.
title A diffuse-interface Landau-de Gennes model for free-boundary problems in the theory of nematic liquid crystals
topic Analysis of PDEs
76A15, 49J27, 49K20, 35B50, 49J45, 35F30
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.21437