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Abstract
A viscoelastic model, composed of the Ericksen and Landau-de Gennes nematic continuum theories, is used to study numerically the relaxation phenomena after cessation of simple shear flow for a model rigid rod uniaxial nematic polymer. This model predicts that under certain conditions the relaxation of stored molecular and coupling elastic free energies due to periodic fluctuations in the scalar order parameter results in a transient periodic distortion of the director field. These conditions are that: (1) the ratio of the wavelength scales of the initial periodic spatial variation in the scalar order parameter k s to the initial periodic planar director orientation fluctuation kφ (i.e. k S/kφ) and the amplitude of the initial S spatial variation exceed certain minimum values, and (2) kφ is not zero. It is shown that the wavelength selection mechanism is controlled by the director reorientation-induced backflows. The digitized optical patterns of the transient periodic director field show transient periodic optical patterns similar to the transient banded texture nematic polymers exhibit after cessation of shear flow when observed between crossed polars. The numerical results and digitized optical patterns replicate frequently reported experimental observations.