Fluctuations of topological disclination lines in nematic liquid crystals: renormalization of the string model.
Using the tensorial Landau-de Gennes theory, we study the fluctuations of a disclination line in a nematic liquid crystal. By analyzing the structure and the spectrum of the eigenmodes of a line of strength +/-1/2 , we reassess the concept of line tension used in the simple string model of the disclination showing that it does not include the complete set of eigenmodes and must be renormalized. In general, the line tension considerably underestimates the thermal amplitude of a disclination and we find that it is only applicable to severely confined disclinations.
Svensek
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Department of Physics, University of Ljubljana, Jadranska 19, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia. daniel@fiz.uni-lj.si
Zumer
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