The Topology of Dislocations in Smectic Liquid Crystals
arXiv:1510.07150 · doi:10.1088/1367-2630/18/5/053012
Abstract
The order parameter of the smectic liquid crystal phase is the same as that of a superfluid or superconductor, namely a complex scalar field. We show that the essential difference in boundary conditions between these systems leads to a markedly different topological structure of the defects. Screw and edge defects can be distinguished topologically. This implies an invariant on an edge dislocation loop so that smectic defects can be topologically linked not unlike defects in ordered systems with non-Abelian fundamental groups.
11 pages, many figures, the full catastrophe. Supplementary data with two movies can be found at http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/18/5/053012
References in corpus (4)
Cited by in corpus (15)
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