Formation of walls in cylindrical smectic C layers in the presence of a tilted magnetic field

Abstract

A theoretical study of the elastic properties of a smectic C liquid-crystalline system consisting of cylindrical smectic layers is presented. We show that the ground state configuration of the c-director for such a system depends on the signs of two combinations of the relevant elastic constants. With these configurations as a starting point, we describe how a set of walls under certain conditions must be formed in the system if a magnetic field is applied at an angle to the cylinder axis. An estimate of the thickness of these walls is given. We also show that, depending on whether the angle between the magnetic field and the cylinder axis is larger or smaller than the tilt of the director with respect to the smectic layer normal, the system will exhibit two qualitatively different behaviours.