Dynamical States in Driven Colloidal Liquid Crystals
arXiv:1409.7009
Abstract
We study a model colloidal liquid crystal consisting of hard spherocylinders under the influence of an external aligning potential by Langevin dynamics simulation. The external field that rotates in a plane acts on the orientation of the individual particles and induces a variety of collective nonequilibrium states. We characterize these states by the time-resolved orientational distribution of the particles and explain their origin using the single particle behavior. By varying the external driving frequency and the packing fraction of the spherocylinders we construct the dynamical state diagram.
7 pages, 5 figures, movies of the time evolution of the azimuthal angular distribution of the particles are available at http://theorie1.physik.uni-erlangen.de/publications/material/fischermeier2014a/