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Mesoscopic theory of liquid crystals

Muschik, Wolfgang; Papenfuss, Christina; Ehrentraut, Harald

Liquid crystals of uniaxial and biaxial molecules are considered in the framework of the mesoscopic description which is a general tool of continuum theory. A mesoscopic theory introduces the fields beyond hydrodynamics as additional variables of a configuration space, called mesoscopic space, on which the fields appearing in balances are defined. Besides the mesoscopic space, a mesoscopic distribution function is introduced which describes the distribution of the additional variables at each time and position. It is demonstrated, how the mesoscopic theory can be applied to liquid crystals, and how the Ericksen-Leslie theory and the alignment tensor theory of liquid crystals fit into the mesoscopic framework.
Published in: Journal of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, 10.1515/JNETDY.2004.006, De Gruyter
  • Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.
  • This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.