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SUMMARY:Contact Topology and the Cholesteric Landscape - Thomas Machon (Un
 iversity of Bristol)
DTSTART:20190513T092000Z
DTEND:20190513T094000Z
UID:TALK124252@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:INI IT
DESCRIPTION:Cholesterics\, chiral liquid crystals\, typically exhibit a la
 rge number of metastable states for a given geometry. This is both a bless
 ing and a curse\, it affords great potential for the creation of new devic
 es but can also mean that tight control of a structure can be difficult to
  achieve. In this talk we will discuss why it is that the tendency of chol
 esterics to twist means that they have a complex energy landscape. Our pri
 nciple tools will be drawn from the field of contact topology. By describi
 ng cholesterics as contact structures we will show that non-vanishing twis
 t implies conservation of the layer structure in cholesteric liquid crysta
 ls. This characterises the morphological richness of these systems\, leads
  to a number of additional topological invariants for cholesteric textures
  that are not captured by traditional descriptions\, and gives a geometric
  characterisation of cholesteric dynamics in any context\, including activ
 e systems\, those in confined geometries or under the influence of an exte
 rnal field.<br>
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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