title: Shear-induced mesostructures in biaxial liquid crystals.
abstract: We study nematodynamics of a mesoscopic system consisting of sheared biaxial liquid crystalline polymers using a hydrodynamical kinetic theory. We solve the governing Smoluchowski equation using the Galerkin method in selected regions of the material parameter space and a range of accessible shear rates to investigate stable mesoscopic states and robust structures. The imposed shear flow breaks the rotational symmetry in the quiescent state to induce truly biaxial flow-aligning steady states, logrolling states, out-of-plane steady states, exotic time-periodic motions, and chaotic motions in different regimes of material parameters and shear rates.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208, USA. sircars@math.sc.edu
authors.forename: Sarthok
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sircar
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wang