Theoretical Treatment on Azimuthal Freedom of Molecular Tilt for the Successive Phase Transitions of Chiral Smectics

Abstract

One of the origins of the successive phase transitions of chiral smectics is the head-tail distinction of a molecule. In this study, we consider a molecular theoretical model to discuss the successive phase transitions. In addition to the head-tail distinction, repulsive hard core interaction between molecules is considered. Then the contribution of the mutual excluded volume effect between molecules to the successive phase transitions is examined. Assuming that the tilt angles of molecules are uniform, we discuss mainly on the distribution of azimuthal angles of molecular tilts.