Generalized hydrodynamic equations for nematic liquid crystals

Abstract

We present a formulation of the nematic liquid crystal hydrodynamics based on the tensor order parameter, with the spatial variations of both the director and the scalar (uniaxial and biaxial) order parameters explicitly taken into account. New length and time scales are shown to arise that can be important for the switching dynamics of thin cells subject to large external fields. The Ericksen-Leslie theory is shown to be a special limit of our formulation.