title: Experimental test of curvature-driven dynamics in the phase ordering of a two dimensional liquid crystal.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris VI, LPTHE UMR 7589, 4 Place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sicilia
authors.forename: Jeferson J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Arenzon
authors.forename: Ingo
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Dierking
authors.forename: Alan J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Bray
authors.forename: Leticia F
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Cugliandolo
authors.forename: Josu
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Martínez-Perdiguero
authors.forename: Ibon
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Alonso
authors.forename: Inmaculada C
authors.initials: IC
authors.lastname: Pintre