P. De et al., SUPERCOOLING OF A NEMATIC LIQUID-CRYSTAL, Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics, 47(3), 1993, pp. 1824-1835
We investigate the supercooling of a nematic liquid crystal using fluc
tuating nonlinear hydrodynamic equations. The Martin-Siggia-Rose forma
lism [Phys. Rev. A 8, 423 (1973)] is used to calculate renormalized tr
ansport coefficients to one-loop order. Similar theories for isotropic
liquids have shown substantial increases of the viscosities as the li
quid is supercooled or compressed due to feedback from the density flu
ctuations which are freezing. We find similar results here for the lon
gitudinal and various shear viscosities of the nematic phase. However,
the two viscosities associated with the nematic-director motion do no
t grow in any dramatic way; i.e., there is no apparent freezing of the
director modes within this hydrodynamic formalism. Instead a glassy s
tate of the nematic phase may arise from a ''random-anisotropy'' coupl
ing of the director to the frozen density.