A two-fluid model for the macroscopic behavior of polar nematic fluids and gels in a nonchiral or a chiral solvent

Abstract

We present the macroscopic dynamics of polar nematic liquid crystals in a two-fluid context. We investigate the case of a nonchiral as well as of a chiral solvent. In addition, we analyze how the incorporation of a strain field for polar nematic gels and elastomers in a solvent modifies the macroscopic dynamics. It turns out that the relative velocity between the polar subsystem and the solvent gives rise to a number of cross-coupling terms, reversible as well as irreversible, unknown from the other two-fluid systems considered so far. Possible experiments to study those novel dynamic cross-coupling terms are suggested. As examples we just mention that gradients of the relative velocity lead, in polar nematics to heat currents and in polar cholesterics to temporal changes of the polarization. In polar cholesterics, shear flows give rise to a temporal variation in the velocity difference perpendicular to the shear plane, and in polar nematic gels uniaxial stresses or strains generate temporal variations of the velocity difference. Graphical abstract