Dynamical Scaling In Two Dimensional Quenched Uniaxial Nematic Liquid Crystals

Abstract

The phase ordering kinetics of the two-dimensional uniaxial nematic has been studied using a Cell Dynamic Scheme. The system after quench from T=infinity was found to scale dynamically with an asymptotic growth law similar to that of two-dimensional O(2) model (quenched from above the Kosterlitz - Thouless transition temperature), i.e. L(t) ~ t/ln(t/t0 ^{1/2} (with nonuniversal time scale t0). We obtained the true asymptotic limit of the growth law by performing our simulation for sufficiently long time. The presence of topologically stable 1/2-disclination points is reflected in the observed large-momentum dependence k ^{-4} of the structure factor. The correlation function was also found to tally with the theoretical prediction of the correlation function for the two-dimensional O(2) system.