Statics and dynamics near the nematic-columnar phase transition in liquid crystals

摘要

A Landau-Ginzburg Hamiltonian describing a liquid crystal in the nematic phase near the nematic-columnar phase transition is used to find the renormalized nematic elastic constants and viscosities. The elastic constants, with the exception of the bend elastic constant, are found to be enhanced by order parameter fluctuations, the enhancement being proportional to the second power of a correlation length. Only one of the viscosities is not enhanced near the transition.