title: Quadrupolar projection of excluded-volume interactions in biaxial nematic liquid crystals.
abstract: We compute the quadrupolar approximation to the excluded-volume interaction between hard spherocuboids, which applies to both platelets and spheroplatelets as special cases. We show that this approximation can be written as the superposition of two London interactions: one attractive and the other repulsive. This conclusion also proves why the phase diagram for the excluded-volume interaction of spherocuboids is expected to feature a direct isotropic-to-biaxial transition at a single Landau point.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Matematica and CNISM, Università di Pavia, via Ferrata 1, 27100 Pavia, Italy.
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rosso
authors.forename: Epifanio G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Virga