https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510050168
Effect of hydrodynamic flow on kinetics of nematic-isotropic transition in liquid crystals
Department of Physics, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-01, Japan
Corresponding author: a fukuda@ton.scphys.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Received:
8
September
1997
Revised:
23
October
1997
Accepted:
3
November
1997
Published online: 15 January 1998
We investigate kinetics of nematic-isotropic transition
by solving the hydrodynamic equations
for the nematic 3 X 3 tensor order parameter 
and
the fluid velocity in two space dimension (x-y plane).
Numerical results indicate that nematic directors tend to align parallel
to the x-y plane when hydrodynamic flow is incorporated.
Late stage growth exponents, 
for the correlation length
and 
for the number of topological defects, are not
significantly altered by hydrodynamic flow.
However, in contrast to the case without flow, the relation
holds well, which may indicate the
validity of dynamical scaling for the case with hydrodynamic flow.
PACS: 64.70.Md – Transitions in liquid crystals / 64.60.Cn – Order-disorder transformations; statistical mechanics of model systems
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 1998
