Title

The Cosmological Kibble Mechanism in the Laboratory: String Formation in Liquid Crystals

Author(s)/Creator(s)

Mark Bowick, Department of Physics, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NYFollow
L. Chandar, Syracuse University
Eric A. Schiff, Syracuse University
Ajit M. Srivastava, Theoretical Physics Institute

Document Type

Article

Date

8-19-1992

Language

English

Disciplines

Physics

Description/Abstract

We have observed the production of strings (disclination lines and loops) via the Kibble mechanism of domain (bubble) formation in the isotropic to nematic phase transition of a sample of uniaxial nematic liquid crystal. The probablity of string formation per bubble is measured to be $0.33 \pm 0.01$. This is in good agreement with the theoretical value $1/ \pi$ expected in two dimensions for the order parameter space $S^2/{\bf Z}_2$ of a simple uniaxial nematic liquid crystal.

Additional Information

17 pages, in TEX, 2 figures (not included, available on request) More information at http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9208233

Recommended Citation

Bowick, Mark; Chandar, L.; Schiff, Eric A.; and Srivastava, Ajit M., "The Cosmological Kibble Mechanism in the Laboratory: String Formation in Liquid Crystals" (1992). Physics - All Scholarship. 174.
https://surface.syr.edu/phy/174

Source

Harvested from Arxiv.org

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.