title: Multi-particle collision dynamics algorithm for nematic fluids.
abstract: Research on transport, self-assembly and defect dynamics within confined, flowing liquid crystals requires versatile and computationally efficient mesoscopic algorithms to account for fluctuating nematohydrodynamic interactions. We present a multi-particle collision dynamics (MPCD) based algorithm to simulate liquid-crystal hydrodynamic and director fields in two and three dimensions. The nematic-MPCD method is shown to successfully reproduce the features of a nematic liquid crystal, including a nematic-isotropic phase transition with hysteresis in 3D, defect dynamics, isotropic Frank elastic coefficients, tumbling and shear alignment regimes and boundary condition-dependent order parameter fields.
authors.affiliation: The Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, Department of Physics, Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, 1 Keble Road, Oxford, OX1 3NP, UK. tyler.shendruk@physics.ox.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Tyler N
authors.initials: TN
authors.lastname: Shendruk
authors.forename: Julia M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Yeomans