BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//talks.cam.ac.uk//v3//EN
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Europe/London
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:19700329T010000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:19701025T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
CATEGORIES:Isaac Newton Institute Seminar Series
SUMMARY:Interfaces with singularities: understanding phase
transitions in nematic liquid crystals - Dmitry G
olovaty (University of Akron)
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20190118T094500
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20190118T103000
UID:TALK117121AThttp://talks.cam.ac.uk
URL:http://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/117121
DESCRIPTION:Experimental data indicates that the nematic-to-is
otropic phase transition in liquid crystals may pr
oceed via evolution of interfaces that are not smo
oth. In this talk\, our goal is to provide a poss
ible explanation for the observed singularities of
the phase boundaries.
In order to devel
op an initial understanding of transitions between
the ordered and disordered states\, we formulate
a simple toy model based on the modified Ginzburg-
Landau-type energy defined over vector fields on t
he plane. The corresponding variational model cons
ists of anisotropic gradient terms and a potential
that vanishes on two disconnected sets.
The principal observation from the study of the
simplified model is that the phase boundary singul
arities can be explained by large disparity betwee
n the elastic constants in the gradient contributi
on to the energy. In the talk we will present a co
mbination of rigorous analysis and numerics that l
eads to this conclusion. This is a joint work with
Michael Novack\, Peter Sternberg\, and Raghavendr
a Venkatraman.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
CONTACT:INI IT
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR