Shear flow dynamics in the Beris-Edwards model of nematic liquid crystals

Abstract

We consider the Beris-Edwards model describing nematic liquid crystal dynamics and restrict to a shear flow and spatially homogeneous situation. We analyze the dynamics focusing on the effect of the flow. We show that in the co-rotational case one has gradient dynamics, up to a periodic eigenframe rotation, while in the non-co-rotational case we identify the short and long time regime of the dynamics. We express these in terms of the physical variables and compare with the predictions of other models of liquid crystal dynamics.