Statistical mechanical theory for discotic liquid crystals Discotic nematic-isotropic transition properties

A statistical mechanical theory is applied to study the equilibrium properties of discotic nematic liquid crystals. We report the calculation of thermodynamic properties for a model system composed of molecules interacting through angle-dependent pair potentials which can be broken up into rapidly varying short-ranged repulsions and weak long-range attractions. The repulsive interaction is represented by a repulsion between hard oblate ellipsoids of revolution and is a short-range, rapidly-varying, potential. The influence of attractive potentials, represented by dispersion and quadrupole interactions on a variety of thermodynamic properties is analysed. It is found that the thermodynamic properties for the discotic nematic-isotropic transition are highly sensitive to the form of effective one-body orientational perturbation potential. The discontinuity in the transition properties is more pronounced in the case of quadrupole interaction than for anisotropic dispersion interaction. A remarkable symmetry in the transition properties between prolate ellipsoids (ordinary nematic) and oblate ellipsoids (discotic nematic) is observed.