SUPERCOOLING OF A NEMATIC LIQUID-CRYSTAL

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.