{"paper":{"title":"Density Functional Theory for Chiral Nematic Liquid Crystals","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["cond-mat.stat-mech"],"primary_cat":"cond-mat.soft","authors_text":"M. Dijkstra, R. van Roij, S. Belli, S. Dussi","submitted_at":"2014-04-08T13:01:51Z","abstract_excerpt":"Even though chiral nematic phases were the first liquid crystals experimentally observed more than a century ago, the origin of the thermodynamic stability of cholesteric states is still unclear. In this Letter we address the problem by means of a novel density functional theory for the equilibrium pitch of chiral particles. When applied to right-handed hard helices, our theory predicts an entropy-driven cholesteric phase, which can be either right- or left-handed, depending not only on the particle shape but also on the thermodynamic state. We explain the origin of the chiral ordering as an i"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"1404.2113","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}