8th Liquid Matter Conference September 6-10, 2011 Wien, Austria ...

Tue 611:23-14:00P9.65Nonequilibrium dynamics of sheared liquid crystalsabove the nematic transitionDavid Alexander Strehober 1 and Sabine H. L. Klapp 11 Institut für Theoretische Physik, TU Berlin, Hardenbergstraße 36, 10623, Berlin,GermanyWe study the nonequilibrium dynamics of rodlike nematic polymers under shear flow. Startingfrom a mesoscopic description involving the alignment tensor, we investigate the rheological phasediagram with respect to the shear rate and tumbling parameter. We focus especially on the roleof temperature. The dynamics of the alignment tensor is described by five coupled differentialequations. We employ numerical continuation methods, specifically the freely available softwarepackage MATCONT, to find the boundaries between different dynamic states. We recover theresults that were obtained via direct integration of the set of differential equations for the alignmenttensor. On top of that, we are able to make statements about the nature of the bifurcations, and howorientational modes, i. e. Kayaking Wagging or Tumbling, are born. We present phase diagramsfor different temperatures and investigate new arising phenomena.65