Coarse-Grained Modeling of a Deformable Nematic Vesicle

Abstract

We develop a coarse-grained particle-based model to simulate membranes with nematic liquid-crystal order. The coarse-grained particles form vesicles which, at low temperature, have orientational order in the local tangent plane. As the strength of coupling between the nematic director and the vesicle curvature increases, the vesicles show a morphology transition from spherical to prolate and finally to a tube. We also observe the shape and defect arrangement around the tips of the prolate vesicle.

4 pages, including 24 pdf figures, uses REVTeX 4.1 and PDFLaTeX

References in corpus (4)

• Nematic textures in spherical shells
• Topological Defects in Spherical Nematics
• Vesicle shape, molecular tilt, and the suppression of necks
• Frustrated order on extrinsic geometries

Cited by in corpus (15)

• Topology and Dynamics of Active Nematic Vesicles
• Orientational order on surfaces - the coupling of topology, geometry, and dynamics
• Liquid Crystals on Deformable Surfaces
• Nematic liquid crystals on curved surfaces - a thin film limit
• Spherical nematics with a threefold valence
• Influence of the Extrinsic Curvature on 2D Nematic Films
• Liquid crystal director fields in three-dimensional non-Euclidean geometries
• Stresses in curved nematic membranes
• Membrane stress and torque induced by Frank's nematic textures: A geometric perspective using surface-based constraints
• Simulating defect textures on coalescing nematic shells
• Deformation and chaining of flexible shells in a nematic solvent
• Mechanics of nematic membranes: Euler-Lagrange equations, Noether charges, stress, torque and boundary conditions of the surface Frank nematic field
• Deformation and orientational order of chiral membranes with free edges
• Phase separation and folding in swelled nematoelastic films
• Chiral fluid membranes with orientational order and multiple edges