Fluctuation-induced Non-equilibrium Transition in a Liquid-Crystal Metastable System

TL;DR

This paper investigates how thermal fluctuations induce non-equilibrium transitions in liquid crystal metastable systems, revealing the role of fluctuations in overcoming energy barriers and analyzing transition times based on fluctuation correlations.

Contribution

It introduces a statistical study of fluctuation-driven non-equilibrium transitions in liquid crystals, highlighting the impact of fluctuation correlations on transition times.

Findings

Fluctuations enable transitions against energy barriers.

Transition times depend on fluctuation correlations.

The study uses a liquid crystal pi configuration as a case.

Abstract

The research herein studies the Langevin dynamics allowing for an exchange of energy between liquid crystals and the thermal environment. This dynamics leads to fluctuation and dissipation behaviors in the motions of liquid crystals, and therefore drives the system toward non-equilibrium evolutional processes. In particular, for the operations of liquid-crystal metastable systems, the fluctuation could allow an excitation (non-equilibrium) transition against energy barriers to the globally-stable state. Implemented with an actual case of liquid crystal pi configuration, this work statistically studies the non-equilibrium metastable transitions and shows the dependence of the transition-time on the correlations (of fluctuations).