Molecular Corelations in a Nematic Liquid Crystal

Abstract

To calculate the bulk properties of a nematic liquid crystal the work of Chakravarty and Woo on two-dimenstional phases is generalized to three dimensions. On the basis of the Ornstein-Zernike eqution the pair correlation function for the isotropic phase of a nematic liqued crystal is calculated. With the known correlations of the isotropic phase the order parameters are calculated from the first Bogoliubov-Born-Gren-Kirkwood-Yvon equation. Thermodynamic properties are derived and compared with mean field results and experiments, respectively.