Landau-de Gennes theory of isotropic-nematic-smectic liquid crystal transitions

We propose a Landau-de Gennes variational theory fit to simultaneously describe isotropic, nematic, smectic- A, and smectic- C phases of a liquid crystal. The unified description allows us to deal with systems in which one, or all, of the order parameters develop because of the influence of defects, external fields and/or boundary conditions. We derive the complete phase diagram of the system, that is, we characterize how the homogeneous minimizers depend on the value of the constitutive parameters. The coupling between the nematic order tensor and the complex smectic order parameter generates an elastic potential which is a nonconvex function of the gradient of the smectic order parameter. This lack of convexity yields in turn a loss of regularity of the free-energy minimizers. We then consider the effect on an infinitesimal second-order regularization term in the free-energy functional, which fixes the optimal number of defects in the singular configurations.