Pressure-induced phase transitions in liquid crystals: A molecular field approach.

DasGupta, Sudeshna; Shabnam, Sabana; Pramanick, Soumyajit; Ghoshal, Nababrata; DasGupta, Ananda; Kumar Roy, Soumen · Phys Rev E · 2018

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

A rigorous microscopic treatment of a nematic fluid system based on a pairwise interaction potential is immensely complex. For studying such systems molecular field theories are often the standard method of choice. In this paper we have chosen a simple effective potential U=u_{4}/v^{4}-u_{2}/v^{2}-Au_{2}/v^{2}〈P_{2}〉P_{2}(cosϑ) to study an isothermal-isobaric ensemble describing a liquid crystalline system. Using this we have studied in particular the pressure dependence of liquid crystalline phase transitions.