ABSENCE OF HIGH-DENSITY CONSOLUTE POINT IN NEMATIC HARD ROD MIXTURES

In this paper we resolve a controversy related to the demixing transit ion in the nematic phase of binary hard rod mixtures. Previous analyse s do not agree on the existence of a consolute point closing the nemat ic-nematic coexistence region. We definitely rule out the existence of this critical point, at least in the Onsager theory. Our analysis req uires the determination of self-consistent orientation distribution fu nctions, for which we develop an efficient numerical scheme.; This sch eme is based on the scaling properties of the high density limit of th e stationarity condition on the free energy functional. We illustrate this method in some detail for the monodisperse thin hard rod system. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.