Nonequilibrium dynamics of chiral liquid crystal films

Hydrodynamic effects

Abstract

Chiral liquid crystal monolayers/films are known to exhibit two-dimensional liquid crystal order such as Smectic-C phase in which long axes of constituent molecules are uniformly tilted to the layer normal. It has been observed in experiment that orientations of liquid crystal molecules in Smectic-C phase collectively rotate when the transmembrane vapor flux exists. This collective rotation leads to formation of target patterns with propagating waves of orientation. In this paper we construct a phenomenological model of this phenomenon taking hydrodynamics and chirality into consideration. We carry out numerical simulations using this model and discuss effects of hydrodynamical flows on the pattern formation.