SKM 2021 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 5: Poster Session III: Statistical Physics, Complex Fluids and Soft Matter

DY 5.12: Poster

Tuesday, September 28, 2021, 17:30–19:30, P

Phase behaviour of a generalized chiral Lebwohl-Lasher model — •Anja Kuhnhold and Philipp Elsässer — Institute of Physics, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany

The Lebwohl-Lasher (LL) model is a simple model to study the isotropic-nematic (IN) transition of liquid-crystalline systems. Particles are described by unit vectors that sit on a simple cubic lattice and only interact with nearest neighbours; the interaction potential has a minimum for parallel orientation of the particles’ axes, which drives the IN transition.

Fish and Vink generalized the LL model so that the sharpness of the potential can be tuned and with that the type of phase transition in the 2D limit [1]. Memmer et al. added a chiral interaction to the LL model. They studied the resulting cholesteric phase (where the orientation of particles is parallel within a layer but is rotated between layers) and its behaviour when confined between aligning surfaces [2]. We combine both extensions to the generalized chiral Lebwohl-Lasher model and study the isotropic-cholesteric transition depending on the sharpness parameter, the chirality, and the dimensionality of the system. We use a Wang-Landau Monte-Carlo method to simulate the system and apply finite-size scaling to identify the type of phase transitions.

[1] J.M. Fish, R.L.C. Vink, PRE 81, 021705 (2010).

[2] R. Memmer, O. Fliegans, PCCP 5, 558 (2003).