Defect Kinematics in 2D Nematics: Contributions from Surface Topology, Intrinsic and Extrinsic Geometry, Solitons, Defect Orientations, and Elastic Anisotropy

TL;DR

This paper develops a geometric field theory to describe the complex, many-body defect interactions in 2D nematic materials, accounting for surface topology, geometry, solitons, and anisotropy effects.

Contribution

It introduces a non-gauge-invariant geometric framework that captures defect kinematics influenced by topology, geometry, and nonlinear energy perturbations in nematics.

Findings

Defect interactions can be many-body due to nonlinear energy effects.

Surface curvature and elastic anisotropy induce complex defect dynamics.

Harmonic excitations unify defect orientation and soliton effects.

Abstract

We characterise the particlelike kinematics of charge-carrying topological defects in nematic media via a geometric field theory. This differs from the theory of electromagnetism, with which it is often compared, due to the absence of gauge-invariance. In both approaches, basic defect interactions are governed by a propagator, which depends upon the global topology and/or intrinsic geometry of the surface. For nematic materials, however, the minimisation of the free energy is sensitive to constraints that a gauge invariant theory would otherwise be indifferent to. Hodge theory is used to capture these as `harmonic' excitations, unifying two factors known to additionally affect the kinematics of defects in nematics: relative defect orientations and topological solitons. Perturbations to the form of the energy are also permitted in nematic materials due to gauge \emph{non}invariance. Those that introduce non-linearities in the corresponding Euler--Lagrange equations are shown to result in defect interactions that go beyond pairwise despite the otherwise abelian nature of the underlying U(1) symmetry. We show how this type of induced many-body effect manifests in the cases of non-zero extrinsic curvature and/or elastic anisotropy.