Kole, SJ and Alexander, GP and Ramaswamy, S and Maitra, A (2021) Layered Chiral Active Matter: Beyond Odd Elasticity. In: Physical Review Letters, 126 (24).
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Abstract
In equilibrium liquid crystals, chirality leads to a variety of spectacular three-dimensional structures, but chiral and achiral phases with the same broken continuous symmetries have identical long-time, large-scale dynamics. In this Letter, starting from active model H∗, the general hydrodynamics of a pseudoscalar in a momentum-conserving fluid, we demonstrate that chirality qualitatively modifies the dynamics of layered liquid crystals in active systems in both two and three dimensions due to an active "odder"elasticity. In three dimensions, we demonstrate that the hydrodynamics of active cholesterics differs fundamentally from smectic-A liquid crystals, unlike their equilibrium counterpart. This distinction can be used to engineer a columnar array of vortices, with an antiferromagnetic vorticity alignment, that can be switched on and off by external strain. A two-dimensional chiral layered state - an array of lines on an incompressible, freestanding film of chiral active fluid with a preferred normal direction - is generically unstable. However, this instability can be tuned in easily realizable experimental settings when the film is either on a substrate or in an ambient fluid.
| Item Type: | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Physical Review Letters |
| Publisher: | American Physical Society |
| Additional Information: | The copyright for this article belongs to the Author. |
| Keywords: | Chirality; Elasticity; Hydrodynamics, Antiferromagnetics; Continuous symmetry; Freestanding films; Large-scale dynamics; Momentum conserving; Smectic-A liquid crystals; Three dimensions; Three-dimensional structure, Liquid crystals, article; chirality; elasticity; hydrodynamics; liquid crystal |
| Department/Centre: | Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Physics |
| Date Deposited: | 07 Aug 2023 05:32 |
| Last Modified: | 07 Aug 2023 05:32 |
| URI: | https://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/82825 |
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