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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 40: Complex Fluids and Soft Matter 3 - organized by Uwe Thiele (Münster) (joint session DY/CPP)

DY 40.3: Talk

Wednesday, March 24, 2021, 11:40–12:00, DYa

Orientational order parameters for arbitrary classical and quantum liquid crystals — •Michael te Vrugt and Raphael Wittkowski — Institut für Theoretische Physik, Center for Soft Nanoscience, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, D-48149, Münster, Germany

The orientational order of liquid crystals is measured using orientational order parameters such as the polarization vector and the nematic tensor. These are obtained from an angular or Cartesian multipole expansion of the one-body distribution function of the liquid crystal. In recent years, there has been an increase of interest in particles with general shapes, as well as in so-called “quantum liquid crystals” which are relevant, e.g., in superconductors. However, the standard methods for defining order parameters are not applicable to biaxial particles or quantum systems. In this talk, we discuss how the orientational expansion method can be generalized to particles with arbitrary shape [1] and to quantum soft matter [2]. This provides a unified framework for general classical and quantum liquid crystals.
[1] M. te Vrugt and R. Wittkowski, AIP Advances 10, 035106 (2020)
[2] M. te Vrugt and R. Wittkowski, Annalen der Physik 532, 2000266 (2020)

*Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) – WI 4170/3-1