Bifurcation analysis of the twist-Fréedericksz transition in a nematic liquid-crystal cell with pre-twist boundary conditions

Abstract

Motivated by a recent investigation of Millar and McKay [Director orientation of a twisted nematic under the influence of an in-plane magnetic field. Mol. Cryst. Liq. Cryst435, 277/[937]–286/[946] (2005)], we study the magnetic field twist-Fréedericksz transition for a nematic liquid crystal of positive diamagnetic anisotropy with strong anchoring and pre-twist boundary conditions. Despite the pre-twist, the system still possesses ℤ2 symmetry and a symmetry-breaking pitchfork bifurcation, which occurs at a critical magnetic-field strength that, as we prove, is above the threshold for the classical twist-Fréedericksz transition (which has no pre-twist). It was observed numerically by Millar and McKay that this instability occurs precisely at the point at which the ground-state solution loses its monotonicity (with respect to the position coordinate across the cell gap). We explain this surprising observation using a rigorous phase-space analysis.