Effect of hydrodynamic flow on kinetics of nematic-isotropic transition in liquid crystals

We investigate kinetics of nematic-isotropic transition by solving the hydrodynamic equations for the nematic 3 × 3 tensor order parameter Qαβ and the fluid velocity in two space dimension (x-y plane). Numerical results indicate that nematic directors tend to align parallel to the x-y plane when hydrodynamic flow is incorporated. Late stage growth exponents, φc for the correlation length and φdef for the number of topological defects, are not significantly altered by hydrodynamic flow. However, in contrast to the case without flow, the relation φdef = ‒2φc holds well, which may indicate the validity of dynamical scaling for the case with hydrodynamic flow.