title: Equilibrium configurations of nematic liquid crystals on a torus.
abstract: The topology and the geometry of a surface play a fundamental role in determining the equilibrium configurations of thin films of liquid crystals. We propose here a theoretical analysis of a recently introduced surface Frank energy, in the case of two-dimensional nematic liquid crystals coating a toroidal particle. Our aim is to show how a different modeling of the effect of extrinsic curvature acts as a selection principle among equilibria of the classical energy and how new configurations emerge. In particular, our analysis predicts the existence of stable equilibria with complex windings.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Matematica "F. Casorati", Università di Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Segatti
authors.affiliation: Brown University, Providence, USA.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Snarski
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Matematica "F. Casorati", Università di Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Veneroni
mesh_terms: D050866:Liquid Crystals; D013499:Surface Properties