Journal de Physique I

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DOI: 10.1051/jp1:1993110
J. Phys. I France 3 (1993) 2131-2138

Twisted line liquids

Randall D. Kamien¹ and T. C. Lubensky²

¹ School of Natural Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ 08540, U.S.A.
² Department of Physics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, U.S.A.

(Received 22 July 1993, received in final form 17 August 1993, accepted 30 August 1993)

Abstract
We propose a model of directed lines where the average direction has the nature of a cholesteric liquid crystal. This model, for instance, would describe the liquid of screw dislocations in the twist-grain-boundary (TGB) phase of liquid crystals. We show that the presence of lines does not alter the long wavelength elasticity of a cholesteric and, therefore, does not stabilize Landau-Peierls instability of the cholesteric phase. We discuss other possible mechanisms for stabilizing the twist-grain-boundary phase.