liquid crystal.pdf

CommunicaUonsin Comrnma.Math. Phys. 105,547-570 (1986) MathemaUc © Springer-Verlag 1986 Existence and Partial Regularity of Static Liquid Crystal Configurations Robert Hardt*, David Kinderlehrer*, and Fang-Hua Lin** Schoolof Mathematics,Universityof Minnesota,Minneapolis,MN 55455,USA Abstract. We establish the existence and partial regularity for solutions of some boundary-value problems for the static theory of liquid crystals. Some related problems involving magnetic or electric fields are also discussed. Introduction The equilibrium configuration of a liquid crystal may be described in terms of its optical axis, a unit vector field n defined on the region £2 in ~3 occupied by the material (see [El). For a nematic liquid crystal, the Oseen-Frank free energy density W is given by 2W(Vn, n) =/£x(div n) 2 +/£2(n.curln) z +/£31n × curlnl 2 + (/£z+/£4) [tr(Vn)z - (div n)Z], (0.1) where the constants/£1, ~:2,/£3, and/£4 are generally assumed to satisfy K I 0 , g2~0 , /£30, /£221/£41, and 2/£1~/£2q-~¢ 4. (Here we will assume only that/£1,/£2, and/£3 are positive.) The principal questions we shall discuss are the existence and partial regularity of a vectorfield n with the property that YCF(n)= i n f , ( u ) , where W(u)= ~ W(Vu, u)dx, (0.2) £2 and where the infimum is taken over all u:.f2~5 2 having prescribed boundary values n o on 0.O. The existence of a minimizer n~Hl(O, ~2) by direct methods is presented in Sect. 1. The first ingredient of the proof is to