Title Information
Title
Large-Deviation Theory Approach to Systems with Orientational Order: Results for Two and Three Dimensional Liquid Crystals
Type of Resource (primo)
dissertations
Name: Personal
Name Part
Mainas, Eleftherios
Role
Role Term: Text
creator
Name: Personal
Name Part
Stratt, Richard
Role
Role Term: Text
Advisor
Name: Personal
Name Part
Rubenstein, Brenda
Role
Role Term: Text
Reader
Name: Personal
Name Part
Marston, Brad
Role
Role Term: Text
Reader
Name: Corporate
Name Part
Brown University. Department of Chemistry
Role
Role Term: Text
sponsor
Origin Information
Copyright Date
2023
Physical Description
Extent
18, 126 p.
digitalOrigin
born digital
Note: thesis
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2023
Genre (aat)
theses
Abstract
Problems like describing the extent of order in isotropic liquid crystals, the extend of magnetization in magnetic systems and finding polymer end-to-end distances, can be described in terms of the probability distributions of collective molecular orientations. However, standard statistical mechanical methods for evaluating these distributions fail when large fluctuations become important, as they do close to the isotropic/nematic transition. Moreover, it is even difficult to extract quantitative details on large fluctuation behavior from simulations because of numerical noise. Using large-deviation theory, we described an approach to computing expressions for these probability distributions that can make use of simulation information to accurately compute even the large fluctuation limit of these distributions. Large-deviation theory can be shown to connect the applied field/orientational-order parameter equation of state to the desired probability distribution. The key is to think about the limiting extremes of the system’s response to an applied field. When the field is weak, the central-limit theorem applies, but in the presence of a strong field, individual rotors feel a mean-field from the rest of the system. We show that simple Pade’ interpolation between these limits generates a form for the equation of state that leads to a way of generating accurate orientational probability distributions from simulation.
Subject
Topic
Molecular Dynamics Simulation
Subject (fast) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/00999541")
Topic
Liquid crystals
Subject
Topic
Large deviation theory
Subject
Topic
Random matrix theory
Subject
Topic
Orientational order
Language
Language Term (ISO639-2B)
English
Record Information
Record Content Source (marcorg)
RPB
Record Creation Date (encoding="iso8601")
20230929