Experimental test of curvature-driven dynamics in the phase ordering of a two dimensional liquid crystal.
We study electric field driven deracemization in an achiral liquid crystal through the formation and coarsening of chiral domains. It is proposed that deracemization in this system is a curvature-driven process. We test this prediction using the recently obtained exact result for the distribution of hull-enclosed areas in two-dimensional coarsening with nonconserved scalar order parameter dynamics [J. J. Arenzon et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 145701 (2007)]. The experimental data are in very good agreement with the theory. We thus demonstrate that deracemization in such bent-core liquid crystals belongs to the Allen-Cahn universality class, and that the exact formula, which gives us the statistics of domain sizes during coarsening, can also be used as a strict test for this dynamic universality class.
Sicilia
Alberto
A
Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris VI, LPTHE UMR 7589, 4 Place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France.
Arenzon
Jeferson J
JJ
Dierking
Ingo
I
Bray
Alan J
AJ
Cugliandolo
Leticia F
LF
Martínez-Perdiguero
Josu
J
Alonso
Ibon
I
Pintre
Inmaculada C
IC