Self-diffusion and undulation modes in a Smectic A liquid crystal

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Abstract
High-resolution neutron quasi-elastic scattering measurements on an aligned smectic A sample of terephthal-bis-butyl-aniline are presented and analysed in terms of self-diffusion and undulation mode motions. (1) We find good agreement with the longitudinal and transverse diffusion coefficients D measured by Krüger et al. [5] using spin-echo techniques. (2) We conclude that self-diffusion alone is sufficient to explain both our line widths and line shapes. The undulation mode contribution to the broadening, if present, is too small to be seen in our range of wave vectors.