Density functional theory for dense nematics with steric interactions

Abstract

The celebrated work of Onsager on hard particle systems, based on the truncated second order virial expansion, is valid at relatively low volume fractions for large aspect ratio particles. While it predicts the isotropic-nematic phase transition, it fails to provide a realistic equation of state in that the pressure remains finite for arbitrarily high densities. In this work, we derive a mean field density functional form of the Helmholtz free energy for nematics with hard core repulsion. In addition to predicting the isotropic-nematic transition, the model provides a more realistic equation of state. The energy landscape is much richer, and the orientational probability distribution function in the nematic phase possesses a unique feature: it vanishes on a nonzero measure set in orientational space.

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Cited by in corpus (11)

• Binding of anisotropic curvature-inducing proteins onto membrane tubes
• Binding of Curvature-Inducing Proteins onto Biomembranes
• Binding of curvature-inducing proteins onto tethered vesicles
• Onsager's missing steps retraced
• Curvature-sensing and generation by membrane proteins: a review
• Estimation of anisotropic bending rigidities and spontaneous curvatures of crescent curvature-inducing proteins from tethered-vesicle experimental data
• Curvature sensing of curvature-inducing proteins with internal structure
• Cavity volume and free energy in many-body systems
• Nematic-isotropic transition in a density-functional theory for hard spheroidal colloids
• Contributions of Repulsive and Attractive Interactions to Nematic Order
• An analysis of equilibria in dense nematic liquid crystals