How and why are patterns in a "miso" soup (the Japanese soybean soup) formed ?-----Pattern Formation in Liquid Crystals-------

In the morning we can often meet strange patterns in the "miso" soup in a bowl which are sometimes stripe and sometimes irregular. This is caused by hydrodynamical instabilities due to temperature difference between its surface and bottom and between a center and sides of the soup layer, and due to the concentration difference as well. It is quite popular but contains very complex and deep physics. These are called "dissipative structures" or "self-organization structures" of which formation principle has not been clarified yet. We are working on the electrohydrodynamics (EHD) in liquid crystals (LC) to understand its physical principle. For the research, EHD in LC is extremely convenient and has a lot of advantages.


Formation of a Defect Lattice in Electroconvection of Nematics

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Reference

　　　1)S.Kai and W.Zimmermann, Prog.Theor.Phys. suppl. 99(1989)458.
　　　2)S.Kai, K.Hayashi and Y.Hidaka, J.Phys.Chem, 100(1996)19007.
　　　3)J.-H.Huh, Y.Hidaka, A.G.Rossberg and S.Kai, Phys.Rev.E, 61(2000)2769.




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