Tóth Géza, Denniston Colin, Yeomans J M
Department of Physics, Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, 1 Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3NP, United Kingdom.
Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2003 May;67(5 Pt 1):051705. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.67.051705. Epub 2003 May 21.
We study the growth of aligned domains in nematic liquid crystals. Results are obtained solving the Beris-Edwards equations of motion using the lattice Boltzmann approach. Spatial anisotropy in the domain growth is shown to be a consequence of the flow induced by the changing order parameter field (backflow). The generalization of the results to the growth of a cylindrical domain, which involves the dynamics of a defect ring, is discussed.