Variational Convergence of Liquid Crystal Energies to Line and Surface Energies

par Antonin Chambolle (CNRS, CMAP)

mardi 25 avr. 2023, 15:15 → 16:15 Europe/Paris

Fokko du Cloux (Bâtiment Braconnier, La Doua)

This talk is about a model of an inclusion inside a liquid crystal, 
described by a Landau-De Gennes energy, in an asymptotic sharp interface 
regime where the line singularities (hedgehog) of the director field and 
the surface singularities (flip of direction) are of same order.
The limit is described by a minimal 2D flat chain with minimal 1D 
boundary, attached to the inclusion by an appropriate interfacial 
energy. We hope to rapidly mention possible directions for numerical 
experiments. This is a joint work with Dominik Stantejsky (now at 
McMaster, Canada) and François Alouges (now at ENS Saclay).