title: Chirality and biaxiality in cholesteric liquid crystals.
abstract: We investigate the statistical mechanics of chirality and biaxiality in liquid crystals through a variety of theoretical approaches, including Monte Carlo simulations, lattice mean-field theory, and Landau theory. All of these calculations show that there is an important interaction between cholesteric twist and biaxial order: The twist acts as a field on the biaxial order, and conversely, the biaxial order increases the twist, that is, reduces the pitch. We model the behavior of chiral biaxial liquid crystals as a function of temperature and discuss how the predictions can be tested in experiments.
authors.affiliation: Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242, USA.
authors.forename: Subas
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dhakal
authors.forename: Jonathan V
authors.initials: JV
authors.lastname: Selinger