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Gnomonious Projections for Bend-Free Textures: Thoughts on the Splay-Twist Phase

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 نشر من قبل Randall Kamien
 تاريخ النشر 2019
  مجال البحث فيزياء
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The Hopf fibration has inspired any number of geometric structures in physical systems, in particular in chiral liquid crystalline materials. Because the Hopf fibration lives on the three sphere, $mathbb{S}^3$, some method of projection or distortion must be employed to realize textures in flat space. Here, we explore the geodesic-preserving gnomonic projection of the Hopf fibration, and show that this could be the basis for a new liquid crystalline texture with only splay and twist. We outline the structure and show that it is defined by the tangent vectors along the straight line rulings on a series of hyperboloids. The phase is defined by a lack of bend deformations in the texture, and is reminiscent of the splay-bend and twist-bend nematic phases. We show that domains of this phase may be stabilized through anchoring and saddle-splay.

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