title: Wang-Landau Monte Carlo simulation of isotropic-nematic transition in liquid crystals.
abstract: Wang and Landau proposed recently, a simple and flexible non-Boltzmann Monte Carlo method for estimating the density of states, from which the macroscopic properties of a closed system can be calculated. They demonstrated their algorithm by considering systems with discrete energy spectrum. We find that the Wang-Landau algorithm does not perform well when the system has continuous energy spectrum. We propose in this paper modifications to the algorithm and demonstrate their performance on a lattice model of liquid crystalline system (with Lebwohl-Lasher interaction having continuously varying energy), exhibiting transition from high temperature isotropic to low temperature nematic phase.
authors.affiliation: School of Physics, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad 500 046 Andhra Pradesh, India.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jayasri
authors.forename: V S S
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Sastry
authors.forename: K P N
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Murthy