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Abstract
It has been suggested by A. Fukuda et al. that the pairing of transverse dipole moments is responsible for the antiferroelectric interaction between adjacent layers in an antiferroelectric liquid crystal. In a previous article we showed that a negative surface interaction coefficient, probably also caused by the pairing of transverse dipole moments, can explain the threshold-less characteristic of an antiferroelectric liquid crystal. In the present paper we investigate if the influence of population statistics of the transverse dipole moments, can have some effect. It is found that they cause an effective negative surface interaction coefficient, but only at sufficiently large electric fields. At smaller electric fields the transmission characteristic has a threshold field. We conclude that the bulk behaviour of transverse dipole moments cannot explain the thresholdless transmission characteristic.