INDUCED CHAIN RIGIDITY, SPLAY MODULUS, AND OTHER PROPERTIES OF NEMATIC POLYMER LIQUID-CRYSTALS

The authors present a numerical analysis of the induced chain rigidity or global persistence length, the order parameter, the splay modulus, and other properties of a polymer nematic. The macromolecules are viewed as long slender wormlike cylinders interacting via hard-core repulsions in the second virial approximation. We calculate the orientational distribution function from the nonlinear integrodifferential equation first formulated by A.R. Khokhlov and A.N. Semenov. A bifurcation analysis of this equation is also given. Exact expressions for the susceptibility and the global persistence length are derived in terms of the distribution function. Analytical estimates of these quantities based on the usual methods are extremely poor approximations compared to those determined numerically.