Contact topology and the structure and dynamics of cholesterics

Using tools and concepts from contact topology we show that non-vanishing twist implies conservation of the layer structure in cholesteric liquid crystals. This leads to a number of additional topological invariants for cholesteric configurations, such as layer numbers, that are not captured by trad...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Thomas Machon
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2017-01-01
Series:New Journal of Physics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/aa958d