Poisson-bracket approach to the dynamics of bent-core molecules.
We generalize our previous work on the phase stability and hydrodynamic of polar liquid crystals possessing local uniaxial C infinity v symmetry to biaxial systems exhibiting local C2v symmetry. Our work is motivated by the recently discovered examples of thermotropic biaxial nematic liquid crystals comprising bent-core mesogens, whose molecular structure is characterized by a non-polar-body axis (n) as well as a polar axis (p) along the bisector of the bent mesogenic core which is coincident with a large, transverse dipole moment. The free energy for this system differs from that of biaxial nematic liquid crystals in that it contains terms violating the p-->-p symmetry. We show that, in spite of a general splay instability associated with these parity-odd terms, a uniform polarized biaxial state can be stable in a range of parameters. We then derive the hydrodynamic equations of the system, via the Poisson-bracket formalism, in the polarized state and comment on the structure of the corresponding linear hydrodynamic modes. In our Poisson-bracket derivation, we also compute the flow-alignment parameters along the three symmetry axes in terms of microscopic parameters associated with the molecular geometry of the constituent biaxial mesogens.
Kung
William
W
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA. w-kung@northwestern.edu
Marchetti
M Cristina
MC