Effect of electric field on reentrance transition in a binary mixture of liquid crystals

Employing a phenomenological mean field theory, we analyze the effect of an electric field on the N - SmA phase transition for pure liquid crystal and on the reentrant nematic phase in a binary mixture of liquid crystals exhibiting the phase sequence I - N - SmA - N-R on cooling. The basic idea of the work is to explain the phase transition behavior of the system by assuming that certain Landau coefficients associated with the order parameters coupling terms of the free-energy density expansion are field dependent. These parameters play a crucial role and show a rapid variation at the SmA - N-R transition as compared to the SmA - N transition.