Sign in
Topological Symmetry Breakdown in Cholesterics, Nematics, andHe3
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Topological Symmetry Breakdown in Cholesterics, Nematics, andHe3

A. P Balachandran, F Lizzi and V. G. J Rodgers
Physical review letters, Vol.52(20), pp.1818-1821
05/1984
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.52.1818

View Online

Abstract

Cholesterics, uniaxial and biaxial nematics, and the dipole-free A phase of superfluid 3He are characterized by order parameters which are left invariant by suitable "symmetry" groups H. We show that in the presence of defects, the full group H may not be implementable on the states because of topological obstructions. Thus H is topologically broken in the presence of suitable defects.

Details

Metrics