Stability of Domain Walls in Cylindrical Layers of Smectic C Liquid Crystals

Abstract

The stability of the static domain wall reported by Atkin and Stewart for an infinite sample of concentric, cylindrical layers of smectic C liquid crystals arranged with a fixed inner radius a > 0 is considered. A criterion is derived as a test for stability. Various estimates on the relative magnitudes of the smectic elastic constants lead to physically meaningful stability results. The occurrence of such a wall indicates the relative magnitudes of the combinations of constants A12 ? A21 and A12 andplus; A21 andplus; 2A11 and, in a special case, can indicate when A12 andap; A21.