A theoretical study of simple liquid crystal models

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Abstract
The reference hypernetted-chain (RHNC) theory is solved for simple liquid crystal models and the results obtained are compared with Monte Carlo calculations. It is shown that the RHNC approximation gives an accurate estimate of the stability limit of the isotropic phase with respect to fluctuations of nematic symmetry. Furthermore, it provides a good description of the growth of long-range angular correlation in the pretransitional region. The temperature dependence of the inverse Kerr constant given by the RHNC theory is examined and qualitatively compared with mean field theory and experimental results. Finally, the reference linearized hypernetted-chain (RLHNC) theory and the mean spherical approximation (MSA) are also solved and are shown to be less accurate than the RHNC theory for the model considered.