Gnomonious projections for bend-free textures: thoughts on the splay-twist phase

Abstract

The Hopf fibration has inspired any number of geometric structures in physical systems, in particular, in chiral liquid crystalline materials. Because the Hopf fibration lives on the three sphere, S 3 , some method of projection or distortion must be employed to realize textures in flat space. Here, we explore the geodesic-preserving gnomonic projection of the Hopf fibration, and show that this could be the basis for a new liquid crystalline texture with only splay and twist. We outline the structure and show that it is defined by the tangent vectors along the straight line rulings on a series of hyperboloids. The phase is defined by a lack of bend deformations in the texture, and is reminiscent of the splay-bend and twist-bend nematic phases. We show that domains of this phase may be stabilized through anchoring and saddle-splay.