Speaker: Pro.Ming wenfei (Anhui Normal University)

Title:On the isotropic-nematic phase transition for the liquid crystal

Time: Tue, Nov.13, 2018 , AM:9:00-10:00

Location: Room 4318, Building No.4, Wushan Campus

Abstract：  

    In this talk, we study the isotropic-nematic phase transition for the nematic liquid crystal based on the Landau-de Gennes $\QQ$-tensor theory. We justify the limit from the Landau-de Gennes flow to a sharp interface model: in the isotropic region, $\QQ\equiv0$; in the nematic region,the $\QQ$-tensor is constrained on the manifolds $\mathcal{N}=\{s_+(\nn\otimes\nn-\frac13\II),\nn\in\BS\}$ with $s_+$ a positive constant, and the evolution of alignment vector field $\nn$ obeys the harmonic map heat flow; while the interface separating the isotropic and nematic regions evolves by the mean curvature flow. This problem can be viewed as a concrete but representative case of the Rubinstein-Sternberg-Keller problem. This is a joint work with Professor Wei Wang in ZJU, Professor Pingwen Zhang and Professor Zhifei Zhang in PKU.