Metric approach for sound propagation in nematic liquid crystals

Abstract

In the eikonal approach, we describe sound propagation near to topological defects of nematic liquid crystal as geodesics of a non-euclidian manifold endowed with an effective metric tensor. The relation between the acoustics of the medium and this geometrical description is given by Fermat's principle. We calculate the ray trajectories and propose a diffraction experiment to retrieve informations about the elastic constants.

arXiv comment6 pages, 4 figures, accepted in Physical Review E

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Cited by in corpus (9)

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• Propagation of acoustic waves in a von-Kármán vortex street like configuration of disclinations
• Principles of thermal design with nematic liquid crystals
• Thermal diode made by nematic liquid crystal
• Emergence of Fresnel diffraction zones in gravitational lensing by a cosmic string
• Retrieving the saddle-splay elastic constant $K_{24}$ of nematic liquid crystals from an algebraic approach
• Wave propagation in metamaterials mimicking the topology of a cosmic string
• Wave diffraction by a cosmic string
• Geometric theory of topological defects: methodological developments and new trends