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Hydrodynamic instabilities in active cholesteric liquid crystals

Whitfield, Carl A and Adhyapak, Tapan Chandra and Tiribocchi, Adriano and Alexander, Gareth P and Marenduzzo, Davide and Ramaswamy, Sriram (2017) Hydrodynamic instabilities in active cholesteric liquid crystals. In: EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL E, 40 (4).

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2017-11536-2

Abstract

We describe the basic properties and consequences of introducing active stresses, with principal direction along the local director, in cholesteric liquid crystals. The helical ground state is found to be linearly unstable to extensile stresses, without threshold in the limit of infinite system size, whereas contractile stresses are hydrodynamically screened by the cholesteric elasticity to give a finite threshold. This is confirmed numerically and the non-linear consequences of instability, in both extensile and contractile cases, are studied. We also consider the stresses associated to defects in the cholesteric pitch (lambda lines) and show how the geometry near to the defect generates threshold-less flows reminiscent of those for defects in active nematics. At large extensile activity lambda lines are spontaneously created and can form steady-state patterns sustained by constant active flows.

Item Type: Journal Article
Publication: EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL E
Additional Information: Copy right for this article belongs to the SPRINGER, 233 SPRING ST, NEW YORK, NY 10013 USA
Department/Centre: Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Physics
Date Deposited: 21 Jul 2017 10:22
Last Modified: 21 Jul 2017 10:22
URI: http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/57471

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