Effective theory and simulations of Smectic-A liquid crystals

We present simulation results of focal conic structures in smectics-A. Smectic-A is a liquid-crystalline state of matter, with long-range orientational order, and a layered structure with liquid-like order within each layer. In experiments it exhibits striking focal conic domains - defect structures forming beautiful ellipses and hyperbolas. We derive dynamical equations for a vector field that is parallel to the layer normal, and whose size is related to the compression of the layers. In our simulations, focal conic structures spontaneously emerge from random initial configurations, and are characterized by several visualization tools that we developed. We study both coarsening and the effects of shear stress in this system, which are compared with experiments performed in Cornell. We also discuss generalizations to include the dynamics of dislocations.